Informix

1980: The Beginning

Roger Siple and Laura King worked at Cromemco , where they developed a small relational database management system based on ISAM , which was part of a reporting software package.

Siple and King subsequently left Cromemco and founded their own company Relational Database Systems (RDS) in 1980. Their first product was Marathon, a 16-bit version of their early implementation of ISAM. Marathon was intended for the Onyx operating system - the Unix version for the early ZiLOG microprocessors.

At RDS, they focused on the expanding market for relational DBMSs and launched their own product under the Informix brand (INFORMation on unIX) in 1981. Informix supplied their own Informer language. The package also included the ACE report shaper, which allowed you to extract data from the database and present it in a convenient form for reading. The PERFORM tool allowed users to interactively access and edit data in databases. The final release was version 3.30, released in early 1986.

In 1985, RDS introduced the new SQL-based query engine as part of INFORMIX-SQL (ISQL) version 1.10 (version 1.00 was never released). The product included new versions of ACE and PERFORM, which now supported SQL. The most significant difference between ISQL and the previous version of Informix was the allocation of the database access code to the engine process (sqlexec) - earlier it was part of the client. This was the stage of transition to a client-server model of computing. The evolved ISAM, which was essentially the core of Informix, was called C-ISAM in a new incarnation.

In the early 1980s, Informix remained a small player in the DBMS market, but with the growing popularity of UNIX and SQL in the mid-1980s, Informix's share increased markedly. By 1986, they had become large enough for an IPO . The name of the company changes to Informix Software. Products included INFORMIX-SQL version 2.00 and INFORMIX-4GL 1.00. They were supplied both as part of the DBMS engine and as stand-alone tools (ISQL and I4GL, respectively).

A series of subsequent releases introducing the new query engine is known as INFORMIX-Turbo. Turbo used the new RSAM, which was more productive in a multi-user environment compared to C-ISAM. With the release of version 4.00 in 1989, Turbo was renamed to INFORMIX OnLine (the name reflected the possibility of creating backup copies of the databases with a server running and users changing the data at the time the backup was created). Also, the original product based on C-ISAM was separated from the tools (ISQL and I4GL) and named INFORMIX-SE (Standart Engine). Released at the end of 1990, version 5.00 had full support for distributed transactions with two-phase verification and stored procedures. Version 5.01 also introduced the ability to use triggers.

1988: Acquisition of Innovative Software

In 1988, Informix acquired Innovative Software, a manufacturer of office systems for Unix and DOS under the brand name SmartWare and WingZ, an innovative spreadsheet program for Apple Macintosh.

WingZ provided an advanced graphical interface, supported voluminous spreadsheets, and also provided the possibility of programming in the HyperScript language, which had some similarities with the HyperCard language. The original release was very successful at the time: WingZ was in second place in popularity after Microsoft Excel. In 1990, WingZ was ported to a large number of other platforms (most of them were Unix systems). During this period, bulk investments began in Unix-based workstations, which would allow them to be used to process large financial models. For some (not very long) time, WingZ was quite successful in its niche. Despite this, he suffered from a lack of development and marketing resources, possibly due to a general misunderstanding of the non-server application market. In the early 1990s, WingZ became uncompetitive and was sold in 1995. Informix also sold the Clarise license, which combined WingZ with an updated GUI. The result was a Claris Resolve product.

1994: Dynamically Scalable Architecture

After a failure in the office software market, Informix has refocused on the growing database server market. In 1994, as a result of a collaboration with Sequent Computer Systems , Informix released version 6.00 of its DBMS. The main innovation was the Dynamic Scalable Architecture (DSA).

DSA involved a significant overhaul of the database engine, which received support for horizontal and vertical concurrency. Now, the core based on the principles of multitrading is ideally suited for symmetrical multiprocessor systems, which soon became flagships in the line of such large vendors as Sun Microsystems and Hewlett-Packard . Two forms of concurrency have made the product the market leader in scalability for both OLTP systems and data warehousing.

The name changed to Informix Dynamic Server after the product was briefly called Obsidian, and then - Informix OnLine Dynamic Server. By the time Version 7 hit the market, SMP systems had already gained some popularity, as was Unix. In fact, Version 7 was a generation ahead of rivals and was constantly in the lead in tests. As a result, by 1997 Informix had firmly established itself in second place in the list of database vendors, easily superseding Sybase.

Building on the success of Version 7, Informix divided the DBMS development core into two areas. The first, initially known as XMP (eXtended Multi-Processing), subsequently became the Version 8 line, also known as XPS (eXtended Parallel Server). This focus has focused on the development of data warehousing and concurrency for high-end platforms such as the IBM RS-6000 / SP.

1995: Acquisition of Illustra

The second direction - the technology of object-relational DBMS (OR) - was formed after the purchase in 1996 of the Illustra DBMS. Illustra, written by former Postgres developers under the leadership of one of the pioneers of the database, Michael Stonebreaker , had many features that made it possible to work with data as objects in the sense of object-oriented programming . Such an opportunity allowed to significantly reduce the development time of many projects. Illustra first introduced DataBlade modules that allowed you to create new data types and other features that extended the functionality of the base server. Thus, the server could receive support for spatial and multimedia data. All of these features have been incorporated into Informix Universal Server (IUS) or Version 9.

Both new versions, V8 (XPS) and V9 (IUS), which appeared on the market in 1996 , made Informix the first among the “big three” DBMS companies of the 1990s (the other two companies are Oracle and Sybase ), which offered Native OR support in their products. DataBlade modules soon became quite popular: thanks to a partnership with Illustra, about a dozen modules were ported to the new platform. Competitors added similar functionality later - in 1997, Oracle introduced an add-on package that added support for time series and object data types, and Sybase applied for a similar add-on to third-party companies.

1996-1997: Internal Issues

Although Informix was a technology leader in the DBMS market, by 1996, delays in the release of new products began. Overwhelmed by technical and marketing issues, the new application development product, Informix-NewEra, soon found itself in the shadow of the increasingly popular Java . Earlier, Michael Stonebreaker promised that Illustra technology would be introduced within a year of the acquisition of the company, but, as predicted by the Gartner Group , the integration took more than two years. In early 1997, the leading XPS developer, Harry Kelly, who did not agree with the new direction of the company’s development, switched to work with his main competitor, Oracle Corporation , taking with him 11 more developers. This forced Informix to sue Oracle in order to prevent the loss of technical secrets.

1997: Management Errors

Marketing failures, as well as errors at the corporate leadership level, overshadowed the technical superiority of Informix. On April 1, 1997, Informix announced that its profit for the first quarter did not reach the expected $ 100 million. CEO Phillip White said the reason for this was a loss of focus on the DBMS core business and excessive waste of resources on OR technology. Substantial operating losses and job cuts followed. The company recounted revenue for the period 1994-1996. It turned out that a significant amount of profit attributable to the mid-1990s was sales of licenses to partners, who, in turn, were unable to sell them to end users. These and other irregularities ultimately led to a revaluation of revenue of $ 200 million. Even after White’s resignation in July 1997, the company continued to suffer from such accounting costs and was forced to make another profit re-calculation in early 1998.

Consequences

While speculation about illiterate leadership continued to haunt the company, Informix Dynamic Server (IDS) continued to grow. The change in leadership has also begun to bear fruit. In an article from the September 1998 issue of PC Magazine, among the hundred companies most influencing the IT sector, Informix says:

... Informix is ​​fighting with its main opponent Oracle in the field of OR by expanding the capabilities of their flagship Informix Dynamic Server using the Universal Data Option. After a year of turbulence during which the company underwent a problematic audit, Robert Finnocchio was appointed as the new CEO of Menlo Park, California. With $ 662.3 million in revenue for 1997, Informix is ​​gradually strengthening its position in the database market.

In November 2002, Phillip White, a former Informix CEO, was convicted of eight counts by the Federal Supreme Court of fraud. Thirteen months later, he was convicted of filling out a fake registration application with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

In May 2004, the Department of Justice stated that White was sentenced to two years in federal prison, a fine of $ 10,000, two years probation, and 300 hours of community service. The statement also stated that the amount of damage caused to shareholders by White’s actions could not be adequately assessed from the case file.

German citizen and resident Walter Königsider, the company's vice vice president for Europe, was also charged. But the Supreme Court did not succeed in extraditing him.

In November 2005, a book was published telling about the rise and fall of Informix. It is written by one of the oldest Informix employees. “The Real Story of Informix Software and Phil White: Lessons from Business and Leadership for Leadership” allowed us to look at the history of the company from the inside through the eyes of one of the employees. The book contains a detailed description of the company's successes at the initial stage, the terrible fall and how CEO Phil White ended up in jail.

2001: Other Acquisitions

Since 2001, the main events in the life of Informix have ceased to concern technical innovation. In March, the company acquires Ardent Software, a company whose history consists of mergers and acquisitions. This acquisition added the multi-dimensional UniVerse and UniData engines (collectively known as U2 ) to the already fairly large list of DBMS engines in the company's portfolio by that time, which included not only the Informix family, but also the Red Brick and data warehouse-oriented SQL engine 100% Java version of SQL, Cloudscape (which was subsequently incorporated into the corresponding J2EE implementation).

Thus, at the time of the acquisition of Informix IBM, the product line consisted of:

• Informix C-ISAM is the latest version of the original Marathon DBMS.
• Informix SE - was offered as a low-end system for embedding in applications.
• Informix OnLine is a complete mid-size database management system.
• Informix Extended Parallel Server (XPS, V8) is a high-end version of V7 designed for use on a large number of distributed machines.
• Informix Universal Server (V9) is a combination of the V7 OnLine engine with support for OR mapping and DataBlade modules from Illustra.
• Informix-4GL is the fourth generation of a programming language for applications.
• Red Brick Warehouse is a data warehouse management product.
• Cloudscape is a relational database management system written entirely in Java for mobile devices and J2EE architectures. In 2004, Cloudscape was released by IBM under the name Derby as an open source database management system, supported by the Apache Software Foundation.
• U2 suite, UniVerse and UniData are multi-dimensional DBMSs that provide the ability to work with networks, hierarchies, arrays and other data types that are difficult to model in SQL.

IBM Acquires Informix

In July 2000, Peter Gaines, former CEO of Ardent, serves as CEO of Informix. He begins to reorganize the company, trying to make it more attractive for subsequent sale. The most important step in this direction was the separation of all DBMS technologies from other applications and tools.

In April 2001, IBM, led by Wal-Mart (Informix's largest customer), acquired Informix's DBMS technology, brand, plans for future development (an internal project codenamed Arrowhead), and a base of 100,000 customers. The remaining application and tool development resources form the new Ascential Software company. In May 2005, IBM acquired Ascential, reuniting Informix’s resources under its own label Information Management Software .

IBM has far-reaching plans for Informix and DB2 . After the acquisition of Informix by IBM, it was rumored that IBM plans to merge the two DBMSs, Informix and DB2, into one and halt the further development of Informix. But after some analysis of the situation, it became clear that there was no opportunity for such a development of events. Current plans call for an exchange of capabilities between the two flagship DBMSs. At the same time, Informix is ​​positioned as a powerful OLTP solution, while DB2 is supposed to occupy the niche of data warehouses.

• In October 2006, IBM announced the release in 2007 of a new version of the IBM Informix Dynamic Server (IDS), code-named Cheetah.

• On June 12, 2007, the IBM Informix 11.1 Cheetah DBMS was officially introduced to the public.

• Along with the announcement of the release of the new version of Informix 11.1, IBM announced that DB2 and IBM Informix Dynamic Server will be developed in parallel and independently. The previously planned merger of the two products has been canceled. IBM Informix will grow and market as a DBMS for high-performance OLTP systems, while DB2 will be the ideal DBMS for Data Warehouse . The new version of the server will support Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA), which will help in the integration of applications.

The main innovations of this version are: a new checkpoint processing algorithm (now the application does not block at the time the checkpoint is executed), the ability to create several secondary servers in replication. A completely new level of isolation has emerged - LAST COMMITTED READ, which allows you to get the most recent version of strings accepted, even if another parallel session holds an exclusive lock at the row level.

• Informix 11.1 introduces a 64-bit version for the Windows platform. ^[2]

• On April 28, 2008, IBM Informix 11.5 Cheetah 2 was introduced. In this version of the server, significant improvements in high availability appeared when working in a cluster. A new connection manager has appeared, which dynamically routes the requirements of client applications for establishing connections to the most suitable server in a high-availability cluster. The connection manager connects to each of the servers in the cluster and collects statistical information about the type of server, unused capacity and the current state of the server. Based on this information, the connection manager redirects the connection to a suitable server. In addition, the connection manager throttler provides an algorithm for automatically supporting fault tolerance in high availability clusters. Using the configuration file, you indicate which secondary server will take control if a failure occurs on the primary server. Also, it became possible to update data on secondary servers in a high availability cluster.

• Informix 11.5 introduces support for the Mac OS platform. ^[3]

• Now you can download the Informix Developer Edition version for various platforms from the IBM website for free. Informix Developer Edition has full functionality, but has some restrictions on the amount of data and the number of processors used and is not intended for commercial use.

• It is also worth noting that IBM announced the end in 2009 of technical support for versions 7.31 and 9.40. For Informix version 7.31, the end of technical support is scheduled for September 30, 2009. For Informix version 9.40, technical support ends April 30, 2009. The end of support for IDS v10.00 is scheduled for 2010.

• The next stage of development should be DBMS IDS v12.00, known under the working name Panther.

• In May 2010, IBM updated the Informix line of editions. There are two free versions for commercial use of Informix Innovator-C for all platforms, including 32-bit and 64-bit Linux, Windows, AIX, etc., as well as Informix Ultimate-C for Windows and MacOS. For these versions, there is also paid technical support. The editions of Informix Growth Edition V11.50 and Informix Ultimate Edition V11.50 are also presented with different options for the cost of licenses.
• In July 2010, Informix Ultimate-C versions for Windows and MacOS were removed.
• In October 2010, IBM released the new IDS 11.70 Panther for all major platforms.

• Informix page on the IBM website (Russian)
• IBM Informix at developerWorks
• Informix International User Group
• Russian-speaking community Informix