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Administering
In addition to administering the database server, you can tune performance, replicate data, and archive data.
Enterprise Replication
The HCL® Informix® Enterprise Replication Guide describes the concepts of data replication using Informix Enterprise Replication, including how to design your replication system, as well as administer and manage data replication throughout your enterprise.
Setting up and managing Enterprise Replication
After you design your replication system, you define it and start replication.
Defining Replication Servers, Replicates, Participants, and Replicate Sets
These topics describe the steps defining and starting Enterprise Replication.
Defining Replication Servers
You must define a replication server to create a replication domain or to add a server to an existing domain.
Customizing the Replication Server Definition
You can specify replication attributes of a server when you define it.

Administering
In addition to administering the database server, you can tune performance, replicate data, and archive data.
- System administration
  These topics contain concepts, procedures, and reference information for database and database server administrators to use for managing and tuning HCL Informix® database servers.
- Backup and Restore Guide
  The Informix® Backup and Restore Guide describes how to use the Informix ON-Bar and ontape utilities to back up and restore database server data. These utilities enable you to recover your databases after data is lost or becomes corrupted due to hardware or software failure or accident.
- Enterprise Replication
  The HCL® Informix® Enterprise Replication Guide describes the concepts of data replication using Informix Enterprise Replication, including how to design your replication system, as well as administer and manage data replication throughout your enterprise.
  - About Enterprise Replication
    Informix® Enterprise Replication generates and manages multiple copies of data at one or more sites, which allows an enterprise to share corporate data throughout its organization.
  - Planning and designing for Enterprise Replication
    Before you set up your replication system, plan how to include Enterprise Replication into your database server environment, design your database schema by following Enterprise Replication requirements, and then design your replication system between database servers.
  - Setting up and managing Enterprise Replication
    After you design your replication system, you define it and start replication.
    - Preparing the Replication Environment
      The following topics explain the steps that are required for setting up Enterprise Replication.
    - Using High-Availability Clusters with Enterprise Replication
    - Defining Replication Servers, Replicates, Participants, and Replicate Sets
      These topics describe the steps defining and starting Enterprise Replication.
      - Starting Database Servers
        The database server must be online before you can define it as a replication server.
      - Defining Replication Servers
        You must define a replication server to create a replication domain or to add a server to an existing domain.
        Creating a new domain by cloning a server
        You can create a new replication domain by cloning a server and then converting the two Informix® database servers to replication servers. Use cloning and conversion if you want to set up replication based on the data on a source server that is not yet running Enterprise Replication.
        Adding a server to the domain by cloning a server
        You can add a replication server to an existing replication domain by using the ifxclone utility to clone an existing replication server onto a target database server.
        Customizing the Replication Server Definition
        You can specify replication attributes of a server when you define it.
      - Define a replicate
        To define a replicate, use the cdr define replicate command.
      - Define replicate sets
        When you define a replicate set, you specify the type of replicate set, the replicates that belong to the replicate set, and the frequency of replication for the member replicates.
      - Initially Synchronizing Data Among Database Servers
      - Set up replication through templates
        Enterprise Replication provides templates to allow easy setup and deployment of replication for clients with large numbers of tables to replicate. A template uses schema information about a database, a group of tables, columns, and replication keys to define a group of master replicates and a replicate set.
    - Grid setup and management
      A grid is a set of replication servers that are configured to simplify administration. When you run SQL data definition statements from within a grid context on a grid server, the statements propagate to all servers in the grid. You can run SQL data manipulation statements and routines through grid routines. You can choose to set up replication automatically when you create a table through a grid. You can propagate external files to other servers in the grid.
    - Shard cluster setup
      Sharding is a way to horizontally partition a single table across multiple database servers in a shard cluster. Enterprise Replication moves the data from the source server to the appropriate target server as specified by the sharding method. You query a sharded table as if the entire table is on the local server. You do not need to know where the data is. Queries that are performed on one shard server retrieve the relevant data from other servers in a shard cluster. Sharding reduces the index size on each shard server and distributes performance across hardware. You can add shard servers to the shard cluster as your data grows.
    - Managing Replication Servers and Replicates
    - Monitor and troubleshooting Enterprise Replication
      You can monitor and diagnose problems with the Enterprise Replication system by using several different methods, depending on your needs.
  - Push data feature
  - Loopback replication
  - Appendixes

Customizing the Replication Server Definition

You can specify replication attributes of a server when you define it.

About this task

When you define a replication server, you can specify the following attributes in the cdr define server command:

Set the idle timeout.
To specify the time (in minutes) that you want to allow the connection between two Enterprise Replication servers to remain idle before disconnecting, use the --idle=timeout option.
You can later change the values of this attribute with the cdr modify server command.

Specify the location of the ATS and RIS directories.
To use ATS, specify the directory for the Aborted Transaction Spooling (ATS) files for the server using --ats=dir or--ris=dir . To prevent either ATS or RIS file generation, set the directory to /dev/null (UNIX™) or NUL (Windows™).
You can later change the values of these attributes with the cdr modify server command.
Specify the format of the ATS and RIS files.
Use the -atsrisformat=type option to specify whether the ATS and RIS files are generated in text format, XML format, or both formats.
You can later change the values of this attribute with the cdr modify server command.
Specify the type of server if you are using hierarchical replication:
- To specify the server as a nonroot server, use the --nonroot option.
- To specify the server as a leaf server, use the --leaf option.
If neither --leaf nor --nonroot is specified, the server is defined as a root server. The parent server is the server specified by the --sync=sync_server option.