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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.
Performance Guide
The Informix® Performance Guide describes how to configure and operate your HCL Informix database server to improve overall system throughput and to improve the performance of SQL queries.
Effect of configuration on CPU utilization
The combination of operating-system and Informix® configuration parameters can affect CPU utilization. You can change the settings of the Informix configuration parameters that directly affect CPU utilization, and you can adjust the settings for different types of workloads.
UNIX™ configuration parameters that affect CPU utilization
Your database server distribution includes a machine notes file that contains recommended values for UNIX™ configuration parameters. Because the UNIX parameters affect CPU utilization, you should compare the values in the machine notes file with your current operating-system configuration.

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.
  - List of utilities
    HCL Informix® includes utilities and applications that you can use to perform administrative tasks and capture information about configuration and performance.
  - Administrator's Guide
    The Informix® Administrator's Guide provides the information required to administer HCL Informix.
  - Administrator's Reference
    The Informix® Administrator's Reference includes comprehensive descriptions of HCL Informix configuration parameters, the system-monitoring interface (SMI) tables in the sysmaster database, the syntax of database server utilities such as onmode and onstat, logical-log records, disk structures, event alarms, and unnumbered error messages.
  - DB-Access User's Guide
    The Informix® DB-Access User's Guide describes how to use the DB-Access utility to access, modify, and retrieve information from Informix database servers.
  - High-Performance Loader User's Guide
    The describes how to use the HCL Informix® to load and unload large quantities of data efficiently to or from Informix databases.
  - Performance Guide
    The Informix® Performance Guide describes how to configure and operate your HCL Informix database server to improve overall system throughput and to improve the performance of SQL queries.
    - Performance basics
      Performance measurement and tuning issues and methods are relevant to daily database server administration and query execution.
    - Performance monitoring and the tools you use
      You can use performance monitoring tools to create a performance history, to monitor database resources at scheduled times, or to monitor ongoing transaction or query performance.
    - Effect of configuration on CPU utilization
      The combination of operating-system and Informix® configuration parameters can affect CPU utilization. You can change the settings of the Informix configuration parameters that directly affect CPU utilization, and you can adjust the settings for different types of workloads.
      - UNIX™ configuration parameters that affect CPU utilization
        Your database server distribution includes a machine notes file that contains recommended values for UNIX™ configuration parameters. Because the UNIX parameters affect CPU utilization, you should compare the values in the machine notes file with your current operating-system configuration.
        UNIX™ semaphore parameters
        Semaphores are kernel resources with a typical size of 1 byte each. Semaphores for the database server are in addition to any that you allocate for other software packages. You can set some UNIX™ semaphore parameters.
        UNIX™ file-descriptor parameters
        Some operating systems require you to specify a limit on the number of file descriptors that a process can have open at any one time. To specify this limit, use an operating-system configuration parameter, typically NOFILE, NOFILES, NFILE, or NFILES.
        UNIX™ memory configuration parameters
        The configuration of memory in the operating system can affect other resources, including CPU and I/O.
      - Windows™ configuration parameters that affect CPU utilization
        The Informix® distribution includes a machine notes file that contains recommended values for Informix configuration parameters on Windows™. Compare the values in this file with your current ONCONFIG configuration file settings.
      - Configuration parameters and environment variables that affect CPU utilization
        Some configuration parameters and environment variables affect CPU utilization. You might need to adjust the settings of these parameters and variables when you consider methods of improving performance.
      - Network buffer pools
        The sizes of buffers for TCP/IP connections affect memory and CPU utilization. Sizing these buffers to accommodate a typical request can improve CPU utilization by eliminating the need to break up requests into multiple messages.
      - Virtual processors and CPU utilization
        While the database server is online, you can start and stop virtual processors (VPs) that belong to certain classes.
      - Connections and CPU utilization
        Some applications have a large number of client/server connections. Opening and closing connections can consume a large amount of system CPU time.
    - Effect of configuration on memory utilization
      The combination of operating-system and Informix® configuration parameters can affect memory utilization.
    - Table performance considerations
      Some performance issues are associated with unfragmented tables and table fragments.
    - Boosted Partition Free Space Caches (PFSC)
    - Indexes and index performance considerations
      Informix® provides several types of indexes. Some performance issues are associated with indexes.
    - Locking
      The database server uses locks, which can affect concurrency and performance. You can monitor and administer locks.
    - Fragmentation guidelines
      One of the most frequent causes of poor performance in relational database systems is contention for data that resides on a single I/O device. Proper fragmentation of high-use tables can significantly reduce I/O contention. These topics discuss the performance considerations that are involved when you use table fragmentation.
    - Queries and the query optimizer
      These topics describe query plans, explain how the database server manages query optimization, and discuss factors that you can use to influence the query plan. These topics also describe performance considerations for SPL routines, the UDR cache, and triggers.
    - Optimizer directives
      Optimizer directives are comments that tell the query optimizer how to execute a query. You can use optimizer directives to improve query performance.
    - Parallel database query (PDQ)
      You can manage how the database server performs PDQ and you can monitor the resources that the database server uses for PDQ.
    - Improving individual query performance
      You can test, monitor, and improve queries.
    - Appendix
  - SNMP Subagent Guide
    The describes the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) and the software that you need to use SNMP to monitor and manage HCL Informix® database servers and databases.
  - InformixHQ Guide
    InformixHQ is a modern web console for visualizing, monitoring, and managing your Informix server instances. It is purpose built for ease-of-use, scaling out, and optimizing DevOps needs. It provides critical performance management capabilities, monitoring how key performance metrics are changing over time and tracking how efficiently Informix is running your workload even when you’ve stepped away from your screen. Its monitoring system feeds directly into a customizable alerting system so you can be immediately alerted via email, Twilio, or PagerDuty whenever an issue occurs on one of your Informix database server instances. InformixHQ is designed to be scalable to efficiently manage and monitor as many Informix database server instances as you need. Moreover, it's a tool that can be shared by the DBAs, the app developers, the ops engineers, and management and accessed from any desktop, laptop, or mobile device. InformixHQ is the centralized hub for graphical monitoring, alerting, and administration of your 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.

UNIX™ configuration parameters that affect CPU utilization

Your database server distribution includes a machine notes file that contains recommended values for UNIX™ configuration parameters. Because the UNIX™ parameters affect CPU utilization, you should compare the values in the machine notes file with your current operating-system configuration.

The following UNIX™ parameters affect CPU utilization:

Semaphore parameters
Parameters that set the maximum number of open file descriptors
Memory configuration parameters