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.
Migration to and reversion from 15.0.0
Migrating to 15.0.0
When you migrate to a new version of Informix®, you must complete required migration and post-migration tasks.
Migrating to the new version of Informix®
After you prepare your databases for migration, you can migrate to the new version of Informix®.
Moving Your Migrated Version 15.0.0 Instance from Compatibility Mode to Native Mode
To enable all version 15.0.0 features one must move the instance into native mode.

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
  - Migration to and reversion from 15.0.0
    - Preparing for migration to Version 15.0.0
      Before you install the new version of Informix®, you must prepare the database server environment for migration by performing specified pre-migration tasks. If you are also migrating from 32-bit to 64-Bit database servers, you must perform additional tasks.
    - and Upgrading
      The server nodes in your Enterprise Replication (ER) domain can run different versions and fixpack levels. On the other hand, new features might only be available between servers running the new version, and administrative ‘cdr’ commands should be run from the newest version environment.
    - High-availability cluster migration
      You must coordinate the migration and reversion of all servers that are involved in high-availability clusters. You can use a rolling upgrade in some cases to update servers while the cluster is online, with minimal interruption to client applications. Otherwise, you must schedule cluster downtime to upgrade the servers. A cluster must be offline to reverse an upgrade or revert to an earlier release.
    - Migrating to 15.0.0
      When you migrate to a new version of Informix®, you must complete required migration and post-migration tasks.
      - Migrating to the new version of Informix®
        After you prepare your databases for migration, you can migrate to the new version of Informix®.
        Installing the new version of Informix®
        Install and configure the new version of Informix®.
        Setting environment variables
        After you install the current version of Informix®, verify that the INFORMIXDIR, INFORMIXSERVER, ONCONFIG, PATH, and INFORMIXSQLHOSTS (if used) environment variables are set to the correct values.
        Customizing configuration files
        When you initialize the new version of Informix®, which contains a new onconfig.std file, use the same configuration that the old database server used. After you observe the performance of new version, you can examine the new file for new configuration parameters that you might want to use and can you start to use the new and changed configuration parameters.
        Using SSL/TLS database connections
        Adding Communications Support Modules
        Communication Support Modules - ENCCSM and SPWDCSM are removed in Informix Server 14.10.xC9. These modules are not included in the distribution.
        Installing or upgrading any modules
        After you install the new version of Informix®, you might need to install or upgrade any modules that you want to add to the database server.
        Starting the new version of Informix®
        After installing the new database server, start the server. Do not perform disk-space initialization, which overwrites whatever is on the disk space.
        Upgrading the High-Performance Loader onpload database
        Restoring to a previous consistent state after a failed upgrade
        If the CONVERSION_GUARD configuration parameter is enabled and an upgrade fails, you can run the onrestorept command to undo the changes that are made during the upgrade and restore to a consistent state.
        Compatibility Mode And Native Mode
        Moving Your Migrated Version 15.0.0 Instance from Compatibility Mode to Native Mode
        To enable all version 15.0.0 features one must move the instance into native mode.
      - Completing required post-migration tasks
        After you migrate, you must complete a series of post-migration tasks to prepare the new version of the server for use.
    - Reverting from Version 15.0.0
      As long as your Version 15.0.0 instance is running in compatibility mode, you can revert to the version of the database server from which you migrated. When you run the reversion utility, you specify the target server for reversion and then Informix® checks your database. If necessary, Informix might tell you to drop new objects, before automatically converting your data into the target server.
  - 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.

Moving Your Migrated Version 15.0.0 Instance from Compatibility Mode to Native Mode

To enable all version 15.0.0 features one must move the instance into native mode.

Procedure

In-place migration to Version 15.0.0 is a two step process. The first step converts critical disk structures and places your instance in compatibility mode. While in this mode your legacy applications may be tested, and they should behave as they did in the prior version. Reversion to that prior version, should it become necessary, is allowed while in compatibility mode. New applications may also be tested. Be aware, however, that while in compatibility mode many Version 15.0.0 features such as larger tables, chunks, and page sizes are not supported. To enable all Version 15.0.0 features one must move the instance into native mode, after which it is no longer possible to revert the instance in-place. Nor is it possible to return to compatibility mode without physically restoring an archive.

Moving your instance from compatibility mode to native mode may be done one of several ways:

Take a whole system level-0 backup using onbar, and include the -IV1 argument on the command line, as in:

onbar -b -w -L 0 -IV1
Take a level-0 backup using ontape, and include the -IV1 argument on the command line, as in:

ontape -s -L 0 -IV1
Take a "fake" archive using onbar, and include the -IV1 argument on the command line, as in:

onbar -b -F -IV1
Take a "fake" archive using ontape, and include the -IV1 argument on the command line, as in:

onmode -wf TAPEDEV=/dev/null

ontape -s -L 0 -IV1
Through SQL, take a "fake" archive using the sysadmin "archive fake" command, and include the optional IV1 keyword, as in:

DATABASE sysadmin;

EXECUTE FUNCTION task("archive fake IV1");

Results

Taking a real archive during this step is recommended. Physically restoring this archive, should it become necessary, would return the instance to compatibility mode provided no logs are then rolled forward.

The act of moving a primary instance from compatibility mode to native mode generates a log record that is then propagated to all HDR, RSS, and SDS secondaries, moving them into native mode as well.

Once in native mode all Version 15.0.0 features are enabled.