Welcome
Migrating and upgrading
You can upgrade to the 15.0.0 release of HCL Informix® or migrate from other database servers to Informix. Upgrading is an in-place migration method that uses your existing hardware and operating system software. Some changes to the Informix database server can affect upgrading from a previous release.
Migrating Informix® database systems
The HCL Informix® Migration Guide describes how to move data manually between databases, servers, and computers.
Overview of migration
Overview of moving data
If you are installing the new version of the database server on another computer or operating system (non-in-place migration), you can use one of several tools and utilities to move data from your current database server.
Moving data between computers and dbspaces
You can move data between different computers, and you can import data from environments other than the Informix® database server. Except when you use external tables, you must unload your data to ASCII files before you move the data to another computer.
Importing data from a non-Informix® source
The dbimport and dbload utilities can import data from any ASCII file that is properly formatted.

HCL Informix® V15.0.0 documentation
Welcome to the documentation for HCL Informix® 15.0.0 and related client tools and products.
Product overview
HCL Informix® is a fast and scalable database server that manages traditional relational, object-relational, and dimensional databases. Its small footprint and self-managing capabilities are suited to embedded data-management solutions.
Installing
These topics describe how to install HCL Informix® database servers, client products, and modules.
Administering
In addition to administering the database server, you can tune performance, replicate data, and archive data.
Migrating and upgrading
You can upgrade to the 15.0.0 release of HCL Informix® or migrate from other database servers to Informix. Upgrading is an in-place migration method that uses your existing hardware and operating system software. Some changes to the Informix database server can affect upgrading from a previous release.
- Migrating Informix® database systems
  The HCL Informix® Migration Guide describes how to move data manually between databases, servers, and computers.
  - Overview of migration
    - Overview of moving data
      If you are installing the new version of the database server on another computer or operating system (non-in-place migration), you can use one of several tools and utilities to move data from your current database server.
      - Prerequisites before moving data
        Before you use any data migration utility, you must set your PATH, INFORMIXDIR, and INFORMIXSERVER environment variables.
      - Data-migration tools
        Informix® provides tools, utilities, and SQL statements that you can use to move data from one HCL Informix database to another or from one operating system to another.
      - Moving data between computers and dbspaces
        You can move data between different computers, and you can import data from environments other than the Informix® database server. Except when you use external tables, you must unload your data to ASCII files before you move the data to another computer.
        Importing data from a non-Informix® source
        The dbimport and dbload utilities can import data from any ASCII file that is properly formatted.
      - Moving data by using distributed SQL
        If you want to move data with different binary pages and page sizes across platforms and you have expertise in using distributed SQL, you can use INSERT and SELECT SQL statements to transfer the data.
  - Migration to and reversion from 15.0.0
  - Migration of data between database servers
  - Data migration utilities
Client APIs and tools
You can use the HCL Informix® implementation of client APIs to develop applications for Informix database servers.
Embedding Informix®
When you embed HCL Informix®, you can use enterprise-class high-availability and high performance with embeddability features such as easy programmability, a small disk and memory footprint, and silent deployment.
Extending Informix®
Beyond standard relational database objects, HCL Informix® can be extended to handle specialized data types, access methods, routines, and other objects. Informix includes many built-in extensions that are fully integrated in the database server. Informix also provides modules, which are packages of extended database objects for a particular purpose and that are installed separately from the database server. Alternatively, you can create your own user-defined objects for Informix.
Data warehousing
In addition to designing and implementing Informix® dimensional databases, you can use tools to create data warehouse applications and optimize your data warehouse queries.
Designing databases
The first step in creating a relational database is to construct a data model, which is a precise, complete definition of the data you want to store. After you prepare your data model, you must implement it as a database and tables. To implement your data model, you first select a data type for each column and then you create a database and tables and populate the tables with data. You can also implement fragmentation strategies and control access to your data.
JSON compatibility
You can use the popular JSON-oriented query language created by MongoDB to interact with data stored in HCL Informix®.
Security
You can secure your Informix® database server and the data that is stored in your Informix databases. You can encrypt data, secure connections, control user privileges and access, and audit data security.
SQL programming
You can use the HCL Informix® implementation of the SQL language to develop applications for Informix database servers.
Troubleshooting HCL Informix®
Several troubleshooting techniques, tools, and resources are available for resolving problems that you encounter in your HCL Informix® database server environment.

Importing data from a non-Informix® source

The dbimport and dbload utilities can import data from any ASCII file that is properly formatted.

Most applications that produce data can export the data into files that have a suitable format for dbimport. If the format of the data is not suitable, use UNIX™, , or Windows™ utilities to reformat the data before you import it.

In addition to dbimport and dbload, HPL provides ways to access information from non-Informix® sources.