HCL Informix® tutorials and examples

You can learn how to use some of the features and functionality of HCL Informix® by using tutorials, examples, and recorded demonstrations.

Administration
Optimize data storage with the SQL administration API: This example shows how to estimate how much space you can save by compressing data, how to create a compression dictionary, and how to compress data. It also shows how to decompress data and remove the compression dictionary.
Manage storage devices with HCL Informix® Primary Storage Manager: Learn how to set up and use HCL Informix® Primary Storage Manager to manage storage devices that the onbar utility uses for backing up and restoring instances. Each example shows a specific backup strategy:
  • Storing backups for an instance.
  • Storing backups for two instances.
  • Exporting backups to, and restoring them from, a directory.
  • Exporting backups from one server, and importing them to another server.
Connecting AI Agents to Informix using Actian MCP Clients

This tutorial provides a walkthrough for using the Actian Model Context Protocol (MCP) server to enable Large Language Model (LLM) agents—such as Claude Desktop, Cursor, or VS Code—to interact with your Informix database using natural language.

The Actian MCP server acts as a bridge between the Model Context Protocol (a standard for AI-to-data communication) and the Informix database. By following this guide, you will learn how to configure an AI client to discover your database schema and execute queries without writing manual SQL.

Prerequisites:

  • An active HCL Informix 15.0 database instance.

  • The Actian MCP Server installed and running (see the Technical Documentation).

  • A supported MCP client installed (e.g., Claude Desktop, Cursor, or an IDE with an MCP extension).

Key Integration Steps

  1. Configure the Client: Update your client's configuration file (e.g., claude_desktop_config.json or mcp.json) to include the Actian MCP server executable and connection parameters.

  2. Establish the Connection: Launch the AI client. The client will automatically "handshake" with the Actian MCP server to identify available Informix tools (e.g., get_tables, query_data).

  3. Interact via Natural Language: Type questions into your AI interface such as:

    • "What are the top 5 sales regions in the Informix 'orders' table?"

    • "Describe the schema of the customer database."

  4. Review Results: The AI agent uses the MCP tools to fetch live data from Informix and presents the findings directly in your chat or development environment.

Detailed Examples For step-by-step configuration snippets for specific clients like Claude Desktop or VS Code, visit the Actian MCP Client Setup Guide.

Replication
Enterprise Replication examples: These examples show how to set up replication systems with the cdr command-line utility. They do not require a Connection Manager. Each example builds on the previous example to set up the following replication systems:
  • Primary-target replication
  • Update-anywhere replication
  • High-availability clusters in a hierarchical tree topology
Connection Manager configuration examples: These examples show how to configure connection management, using Connection Manager technology, for high-availability clusters and replication systems.
Set up a replication system with a grid: This example shows how to set up a replication domain, create a grid, create a database, create a replicated table, and load data.
Roll out schema changes in a grid: This example shows how to alter the data types of columns in five tables, and to roll out schema changes without application downtime.
Server deployment
Deploy Informix®: This tutorial shows how to deploy a snapshot of the Informix® database server by using the deployment utility.
Informix® extensions
TimeSeries extension: These examples show how to configure database objects for specific types of time series data.
Informix® extensions
Create and load a time series: This example shows how to create a TimeSeries data type, create a time series table, create a time series by using the TSCreate procedure, and load data into the time series by using the HCL Informix® TimeSeries Plug-in for Data Studio.
JSON compatibility
Create a time series through the wire listener: This example shows how to create, load, and query a time series with the REST API or the MongoDB API through the wire listener.
Warehousing
Informix® Warehouse Accelerator: These examples show how to use Informix® Warehouse Accelerator for in-memory acceleration of data mart queries:

For more information, see https://academy.actian.com.