HP reference configuration for HP Virtual Server Environment (VSE) and IBM Informix Dynamic Server

Executive summary............................................................................................................................... 2 HP VSE technologies ............................................................................................................................ 3

Partitioning...................................................................................................................................... 4 High Availability .............................................................................................................................. 4 Utility pricing................................................................................................................................... 4

Informix Dynamic Server High Availability technologies ........................................................................... 4 Overview ........................................................................................................................................ 4 Informix High Availability – Data Replication secondary server types ..................................................... 5 New in Informix 11.50..................................................................................................................... 5

Reference configuration........................................................................................................................ 5 Software infrastructure ...................................................................................................................... 5 Application infrastructure .................................................................................................................. 6 Hardware ....................................................................................................................................... 6

Test results .......................................................................................................................................... 7 Dynamic scale up............................................................................................................................. 8 Dynamic scale out............................................................................................................................ 9

Conclusions ...................................................................................................................................... 11 Appendix A: Informix monitor scripts ................................................................................................... 12

getnumcores.c ............................................................................................................................... 12 Informix-ScaleUp-Monitor.sh ............................................................................................................ 12 Informix-ScaleOut-Monitor.sh ........................................................................................................... 13

For more information.......................................................................................................................... 14

Executive summary The HP Virtual Server Environment for HP Integrity and HP 9000 servers helps you achieve a greater return on your IT investments by optimizing server resource utilization in real time based on business priorities. The HP Virtual Server Environment (VSE) encompasses a number of fully integrated, complementary components that enhance the functionality and flexibility of a server environment. HP VSE Reference Architectures are designed to help you apply VSE in your IT solutions with ease and efficiency. HP VSE Reference Architectures provide customers an example configuration for solutions based on VSE components, HP Integrity servers and key industry applications. HP VSE Reference Architectures are based on tested configurations designed to reduce solution deployment time.

The HP Virtual Server Environment Reference Architecture described in this white paper demonstrates the powerful capabilities of IBM Informix Dynamic Server with HP VSE technologies solution. HP VSE technologies such as HP Global Workload Manager (gWLM) and HP Serviceguard Cluster File System combined with the high availability (HA) and data replication features of Informix provide a flexible and highly scalable solution that can dynamically adjust to satisfy ever changing customer needs. The architecture takes advantage of the Virtual Server Environment for the automatic migration of resources to meet workload needs and Informix HA and Data Replication features to scale up database resources in a single server or scale out1 database services to additional servers to handle increasing demands. Together, these technologies create an application infrastructure that demonstrates dynamic scale up and down resources as a powerful technique to share resources between workloads while meeting business requirements in real time.

The HP VSE Reference Architecture for Informix Dynamic Server provides a small working model of a potentially much larger Informix database environment. An environment built on these technologies can deliver significant benefits. Workloads with large peak requirements will benefit from the ability to quickly and automatically access resources within the server complex they are running on (dynamic scale up) using gWLM. Workloads that exceed the capacity of the server complex they are running on can gain additional capacity by starting Informix services on an additional server (dynamic scale out). As the database load declines, Informix services will be deactivated on the "overflow" server (dynamic scale back). When the load does not require the use of all available Informix services, system resources can be distributed to where they are most needed. By sharing the same capacity across multiple workloads with different peak requirements, overall utilization of the system resources is optimized. Thus, an Informix environment based on the HP VSE Reference Architecture can deliver peak capacity to each workload and maximum utilization of compute resources.

Note that the design of the HP Virtual Server Environment Reference Architecture for Informix involves numerous technology choices. Actual production implementations should be selected and deployed for the environments, workloads, and procedures they will operate within. For example, the virtual partitions chosen for this environment provided a good balance of flexibility and OS isolation. Other partitioning components of HP Virtual Server Environment such as nPars and HP Integrity Virtual Machines (Integrity VM) or utility pricing components such as HP Instant Capacity or HP Pay Per Use could be chosen based on application requirements.

Target audience: This white paper is intended for IT personnel responsible for evaluating and deploying HP VSE with IBM software, and assumes general familiarity and working experience with HP-UX, HP Serviceguard, and HP VSE components, as well as IBM Informix Dynamic Server.

This white paper describes testing performed in March 2008.

1 The scale out functionality described in this paper relies on the Informix Connection Manager functionality scheduled to be available in Informix 11.50. This paper uses Informix 11.50.FCB1TL (beta) release when testing the scale out functionality and Informix Connection Manager features.

2

HP VSE technologies In order to meet customer demand for unified and integrated virtualization, HP has incorporated various technologies in HP VSE, a single offering that is part of a larger software portfolio for HP Integrity servers. This portfolio provides a comprehensive means for controlling the computing environment and includes:

• HP Systems Insight Manager (HP SIM) • HP Integrity Essentials Capacity Advisor • HP Integrity Essentials Virtualization Manager • HP Integrity Essentials Global Workload Manager (gWLM) and HP-UX Workload Manager

The components of HP VSE are shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1. HP VSE

HP Virtual Server Environment

Intelligent control

Virtual servers

HP Systems Insight Manager

HP Integrity Essentials Virtualization Manager

HP Integrity EssentialsGlobal Workload ManagerHP-UX Workload Manager

HP Integrity Essentials Capacity Advisor

Availability Utility PricingPartitioning• HP Serviceguard• HP Serviceguard

StorageManagement Suite

• HP Metrocluster• HP Continentalclusters

• HP Instant Capacity• HP Temporary Instant Capacity• HP Pay Per Use

• nPars• vPars• HP Integrity

Virtual Machines• HP Secure Resource Partitions

As shown in Figure 1, virtual servers can be integrated with the following technologies:

• Partitioning • High availability • Utility pricing

These technologies are outlined below.

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Partitioning HP VSE includes partitioning technologies such as:

• Hard partitions (nPars) – electrically-independent hardware entities with dedicated resources • Virtual partitions (vPars) – separate instances of the operating system on the same server or nPar;

minimum dedicated resources are guaranteed within a vPar; dynamic processor migration is permissible between vPars

• Virtual machines (VMs) – single operating system instance hosts multiple guest operating systems with sub-processor granularity and shared I/O; dynamic resource allocation is permissible between VMs

• Resource partitions – resources are allocated to specific applications and/or users within an operating system; dynamic resource allocation is permissible with processor or sub-processor granularity

These partitioning technologies provide a rich set of choices to meet the various computing needs which may arise in today’s IT environment.

High Availability There are many high availability options for an Informix and HP VSE architecture. Customers could chose to use HP Serviceguard to manage the Informix instances and fail over Informix instance to standby nodes during a failure. Alternatively, customers could utilize any combination of Informix Secondary HA and Data Replication servers to provide some level of high availably protection. The best HA configuration for each customer will need to be determined by business needs based on expected workloads, cost, and performance goals.

Utility pricing Utility pricing in HP VSE is accomplished through Instant Capacity, Temporary Instant Capacity and Pay per use products that are designed to allow IT departments to only pay for processor resources as they are needed. Customers are encouraged to select the product that best meets the needs of their specific environment. For more information on Instant Capacity features on HP hardware visit http://www.hp.com/go/icap

Informix Dynamic Server High Availability technologies

Overview With the release of Informix version 11.10, Informix Dynamic Server has the ability to support a variety of read-only secondary instances that replicate or share the data stored on the primary Informix instance. These additional read-only secondary nodes greatly expanded the high-availability, scalability, and performance capabilities of Informix Dynamic Server (IDS). However, because these secondary nodes are read-only, applications that tried to utilize the read-only node in order to perform a write or update SQL statement would receive an error. Now in Informix’s latest release 11.50, support has been added to allow for automatic redirected writes. In Informix 11.50 with redirected writes enabled applications can utilize secondary nodes without any need to redesign the application to redirect write and update transactions to the primary node. Using re-directed writes IDS will automatically redirect write and update requests issued to a read-only node and redirect them to the primary (read-write) IDS instance.

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Informix High Availability – Data Replication secondary server types Informix secondary server types include:

• High-Availability Data Replication (HDR) – The standard Informix High-Availability Data Replication functionality allows for a one (primary) to one (HDR) replication relationship. There can only be only one Primary to HDR server pair for an Informix database. HDR secondary servers require their own storage in order to maintain a clone copy of the primary instance.

• Remote Standalone Secondary (RSS) – Informix RSS servers expands on the High-Availability of previous Informix HDR secondary capabilities by providing the capability of having multiple geographically remote secondary servers in a one (primary) to many (RSS) relationship.

• Shared Disk Secondary (SDS) servers – Informix SDS servers provide for a one (primary) to many (SDS) relationship. However unlike RSS servers that each require their own separate storage to maintaining a clone copy of the primary database, SDS servers share the storage resources of the primary server.

New in Informix 11.50 Informix Dynamic Server 11.50 introduces two new features that greatly enhances the HA and Data Replication capabilities of the previous Informix releases. These features allow database administrators to develop scaling out and scaling up strategies without the need to significantly modify their applications to be aware of multiple Informix instances.

• Re-directed Writes – redirected writes allow select statements requiring write access to the database to be redirected from a read-only Informix instance to the read-write primary instance without any application modification.

• Informix Connection Manager – The Informix Connection Manager provides a single connection point for applications to utilize. The Connection Manager monitors all the Informix instances and will redirect connections to the appropriate Informix instance based on user defined policies. The Connection Manager can thus be used to load balance connections across multiple Informix instances.

These new features can be utilized in an HP VSE environment to allow seamless scale out capabilities for almost any application without the need to modify the application to be aware of the additional Informix instances.

Reference configuration

Software infrastructure This white paper describes how the HP-UX 11i v2 Virtual Server Environment and Informix Dynamic Server can provide a flexible and adaptive infrastructure that optimizes resource utilization. Combining these technologies allows one to dynamically scale up, out, and back to respond to business needs in real time. The software components in this particular reference architecture were as follows:

• HP-UX 11i v2 Operating Environments • HP-UX Virtual Partitions for 11.23 • HP Global Workload Manager • HP Serviceguard Cluster File System • HP Systems Insight Manager Server Bundle • Virtual Server Environment Management Software • Informix Dynamic Server 11.50

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Application infrastructure The test environment, consisting of an HP Integrity server and an HP StorageWorks Modular Smart Array (MSA) shared storage device, was built to demonstrate the scale up and scale out capabilities of an Informix Dynamic Server and HP VSE infrastructure. The HP Integrity rx8640 server utilized in this environment was divided into two virtual partitions (vPars). The vPars were integrated with Serviceguard Cluster File System to create a shared file system between the two Informix vPars. This environment is shown in Figure 2.

Each virtual partition in the rx8640 server complex was configured with four active processors, one of which was the boot processor and the other three were dynamic processors. The boot processor is the processor on which the HP-UX kernel is booted. In a vPar environment, dynamic CPUs are allowed to migrate across the virtual partitions, thereby providing added flexibility and further increasing the utilization of system resources. It is this capability that allows the environment to scale up (that is, add additional processors) within a partition.

Figure 2. Informix Dynamic Server and HP VSE Reference Architecture

Unbound Resources

D D D D

vPar1: Infx01

B D D D

vPar2: Infx02

B D D D

D D D D

Shared Storage

Dynamic Processor D

Boot Processor B

rx8640

Hardware The following hardware was utilized to create the reference configuration:

• HP Integrity rx8640 server configured with sixteen 1.6 GHz Dual-Core Intel® Itanium® 2 (Montvale) processors with 24 MB cache, 256 GB of memory, eight 146 GB internal disk drives

• HP StorageWorks 1000 Modular Smart Array (MSA1000) – configured with 512 MB cache, 14 72 GB 15,000 rpm SCSI disk drives, embedded Fibre Channel Fabric switch

Note: This hardware configuration does not provide true High Availability as it utilizes only a single server and storage device which would be a potential single point of failure for the environment. Customers seeking a more robust High Availably configuration could clone/replicate the environment in a different location utilizing HP StorageWorks Continuous Access storage software for a more robust High Availability environment that contains no single point of failure.

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Test results Dynamically scaling up within a partition and scaling out to a second server is managed by HP Integrity Essentials Global Workload Manager (gWLM). HP Global Workload Manager is an intelligent policy engine that automatically allocates resources among multiple workloads to increase server utilization while meeting the service levels for high-priority applications. It monitors workloads based on policy goals and automatically migrates CPUs from idle workloads to busy ones, and from lower priority workloads to higher ones to give critical applications the resources they need. To scale up within a partition, gWLM can assign CPUs that were previously unbound resources or dynamic resources assigned to an underutilized or lower priority partition to the virtual partition that is under heavy load within the same server complex based on predefined workload policies.

Within this reference architecture, the gWLM workload policies dictated that each vPar could have between a minimum of one and a maximum of six active CPUs. An external custom-built monitor script was used to control Informix Dynamic Server and retune the Informix instance based on the changing VSE environment. The dynamic scale up and scale down scenario on Infx01 (vPar1) is depicted below in Figure 3.

Additionally gWLM can be configured to perform dynamic scaling out when scaling up resources are no longer available or when scaling out would perform more optimally then scaling up, such as when network bottlenecks occur and scaling out can provide an addition server and load balance network traffic between multiple Informix instances. The dynamic scale out scenario on Infx02 (vPar2) is depicted in Figure 5 in the Dynamic scale out section of this paper.

These tests were performed using HP LoadRunner to simulate virtual users that perform numerous select queries to the Informix instance. Each virtual user consumed approximately 50% of a CPU resource.

Figure 3. Dynamic Scale Up within a complex

vPar1: Infx01 vPar1: Infx01 vPar1: Infx01

B D D D B D D D B D D D

D D

vPar2: Infx02 vPar2: Infx02 vPar2: Infx02

B D D D B D D D B D D D

Unbound Resources Unbound Resources Unbound Resources

D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D

Initial State Each partition has

4 active CPUs

Scale Up Scale Back 2 unbound Dynamic

CPUs migrate to vPar1

2 CPUs return back to the unbound

resources

7

Dynamic scale up In the dynamic scale up test, the Informix instance on Infx01 (vPar1) was configured for 4 Informix CPUVPs (CPU virtual processors) and started. HP LoadRunner was configured to start 2 virtual users every 3 minutes. The Informix instance on Infx02 (vPar2) was not started and Informix was not configured to load balanced across the two servers, thus only the Informix instance on Infx01 would attempt to handle the Informix workload.

The results in Figure 4 show that as the workload increases the CPU utilization on Infx01 (vPar1) increases. As the workload begins to utilize almost all the current CPU resources in the partition, gWLM triggers a resource allocation to vPar1 in order to handle the increased load on the server. The Informix monitor script detects the physical resource changes and issues the onmode –p +1 cpu Informix command to allow Informix to utilize the increased physical CPU resources. As the workload finishes and the utilization on the Infx01 (vPar1) server returns to normal, gWLM removes the extra CPU resources and the Informix monitor script removes the extra Informix CPUVPs.

Figure 4. Dynamic Scale Up of Infx01 (vPar1)

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Dynamic scale out In the dynamic scale out test, the Informix instance on Infx01 (vPar1) was configured for 4 Informix CPUVPs and started. The Informix instance on Infx02 (vPar2) was configured as an SDS secondary server, mirroring the primary server on Infx01. The Informix instance on Infx02 was not started initially. The Informix Connection Manager feature of Informix 11.50 was used to manage the connections between the two servers. HP LoadRunner was configured to start 2 virtual users every 3 minutes. These virtual users connected to the Informix Connection Manager running on Infx01, the connections would then be redirected to the least loaded Informix instance. When the test begins the workload utilizes only the single running Informix instance on Infx01, as the workload increases beyond the configured policy setting in the Informix monitor script, the script initiates an oninit -vy Informix command on the Infx02 server thus starting the SDS Informix instance on that server. When the new server becomes online the Informix Connection Manager is able to begin to utilize it and load balance connections to the new server. Thus the CPU utilization on Infx01 is reduced and CPU resources on Infx02 begin to be utilized.

Figure 5. Dynamic Scale Out Across Two Virtual Partitions Using the Informix Connection Manager

Initial configuration

vPar1: Infx01

Shared Storage

vPar2: Infx02

IDS Primary Instance ONLINE

Informix Connection Manager

 

Clients

IDS SDS Instance OFFLINE

Scale Out Dynamic addition of Informix SDS Server

vPar1: Infx01

Shared Storage

vPar2: Infx02

IDS Primary Instance ONLINE

IDS SDS Instance ONLINE

 

Clients Connection Manager

Informix

9

The results in Figure 6 show that as the workload on Infx01 exceeds the policy setting in the Informix monitor script, it triggers the Informix SDS secondary server on Infx02 to startup. When the Infx02 SDS instance is started the Informix Connection Manager redirects connections to utilize the new Informix instance. When the workload on Infx01 and Infx02 stops the Informix monitor script can shutdown the SDS instance on Infx02. Note the Informix Connection Manager only redirects new sessions, existing sessions already connected to Infx01 will continue to run on Infx01 until they disconnect.

Figure 6. Dynamic Scale Out on Infx02

Infx01 (vPar1) server utilization

Infx02 (vPar2) server utilization

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Conclusions These scale up and scale out building blocks can be built from any model of HP Integrity or HP 9000 servers – the specific model and configuration depends on the number and capacity needs of the databases hosted.

The rationale behind this configuration is higher server utilization and simplicity:

• Higher server utilization: Enterprise workloads typically exhibit CPU utilization profiles that allow them to be consolidated on the same server. This is because the peaks of individual workloads do not typically occur at the same time. These applications can thus use the HP Virtual Server Environment to consolidate the workloads and provide better overall server utilization with less active core counts and reduce costs.

• Efficient high availability: In a dedicated infrastructure, each database instance may need to have a dedicated standby server to handle failures. In a VSE infrastructure, a single server can serve as a production server as well as a failover host.

• Better quality of services: With HP VSE computer resources are shifted to match the varying workloads and maintain Service Level Agreements (SLAs).

• Lower administration costs: Consolidating multiple workloads on a single instance of HP-UX or within a single HP-UX complex managed by gWLM, helps reduce the management and support costs of multiple servers and OS instances. HP VSE provides an ideal balance between isolation among multiple workloads and flexibility in sharing server resources. HP-UX 11i offers the robust foundation to consolidate a large number of workloads.

The flexibility of the HP Virtual Server Environment and the powerful high availability and scaling features of IDS can function extremely well together to satisfy the dynamic, ever changing needs of today’s enterprise customers. This paper only validates the functionality of two common ways to deploy IBM Informix Dynamic Server in an HP Virtual Server Environment architecture. This paper does not consider the licensing requirements of Informix Dynamic Server. Customers should consult their Informix sales representative to assure they comply with their licensing requirements when deploying Informix Dynamic Server in a Virtual Server Environment.

The scripts presented in this paper are very basic sample scripts and may not be suitable for all customer environments. They are intended to show a simplistic approach at achieving scale up, scale out, and scale back techniques. As an alternative to using an external script in the scale up scenario, database administrators can pre-configure Informix with additional Informix CPUVPs in order to utilize any additional physical CPUs if they are dynamically added to the Informix server after Informix Dynamic Server is started. Additionally, when performing a scale back after a scale out, care must be taken to shutdown the secondary server gracefully without terminating currently connected user sessions to prevent client application connection errors, the sample scripts do not gracefully disconnect user sessions and assumes the client application will handle the session shutdown gracefully.

HP VSE Reference Architectures are designed to help you apply VSE in your IT solutions with ease and efficiency. This white paper provided an overview of the VSE Reference Architecture for Informix Dynamic Server database environments. For more information on the HP Virtual Server Environment and HP VSE Reference Architectures, visit:

www.hp.com/go/vsewww.hp.com/go/vsera

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Appendix A: Informix monitor scripts

getnumcores.c #include <sys/mpctl.h> #include <stdio.h> main() { int ncores; ncores=mpctl(MPC_GETNUMCORES); printf("%d\n", ncores); }

Informix-ScaleUp-Monitor.sh export intervaltime=15 # amount of seconds to wait between polling export basecpuvps=4 # base number of Informix CPUVPS export numcpuvps=$basecpuvps while true do export currnumcores=`getnumcores` # Don't allow adjustment of CPUVPS below the base level if [ $currnumcores -lt $basecpuvps ] then export currnumcores=$basecpuvps fi # If there are more Physical CPUS then Informix CPUVPS / Add CPUVPS if [ $currnumcores -gt $numcpuvps ] then export diffcores=`expr $currnumcores - $numcpuvps` echo "onmode -p +${diffcores} cpu" # onmode -p +${diffcores} cpu numcpuvps=$currnumcores fi # If there are fewer Physical CPUS then Informix CPUVPS / Remove CPUVPS if [ $currnumcores -lt $numcpuvps ] then export diffcores=`expr $numcpuvps - $currnumcores` echo "onmode -p -${diffcores} cpu" # onmode -p -${diffcores} cpu numcpuvps=$currnumcores fi sleep $intervaltime done

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Informix-ScaleOut-Monitor.sh export hightrigger=300 # Maximum amount of CPU utilization before triggering Scale Out export lowtrigger=50 # CPU utilization threshold required to trigger Scale Back export intervaltime=15 # amount of seconds to wait between polling export triggercount=5 # number of consecutive polling samples before triggering export tempfile=/tmp/topoutputfile.txt # temporary file for top output data export remotesystem=infx02 # secondary server hostname export scaleoutcommand="oninit -vy" # command to issue to start SDS secondary export scalebackcommand="onmode -ky" # command to issue to stop SDS secondary scaleout=0 export i=1 while true do

# Collect Top CPU Utilization data cat /dev/null > $tempfile [ ! -f "$tempfile" ] && echo "Can't Create Temp File" top -h -f $tempfile

# Calculate oninit CPU utilization if [ `grep oninit $tempfile | wc -l` -gt 0 ] then export oninitutilization=`grep oninit $tempfile | awk '{s += $11} END { print s}'` else export oninitutilization=0 fi

if [ scaleout -eq 0 ] # if not already scaled out / check to see if we need to scale out then

# Determine if Current Oninit utilization is exceeding limits if [ ${oninitutilization} -gt ${hightrigger} ] then echo "onninit utilization is above high water mark for $i interval(s)" i=`expr $i + 1` else i=1 fi

if [ ${i} -gt ${triggercount} ] then echo "Triggering Scale Out" echo "remsh $remotesystem $startupcommand" remsh $remotesystem $startupcommand scaleout=1 fi

else # if already scaled out / Check to see if we need to scale back

# Determine if Current Oninit utilization is lower than low limit if [ ${oninitutilization} -lt ${lowtrigger} ] then echo "onninit utilization is below low water mark for $i interval(s)" i=`expr $i + 1` else i=1 fi

if [ ${i} -gt ${triggercount} ] then echo "Triggering Scale Back" echo "remsh $remotesystem $scalebackcommand" remsh $remotesystem $scalebackcommand scaleout=0 fi fi

echo "Current Utilization $oninitutilization" sleep $intervaltime done

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For more information HP Virtual Server Environment, http://www.hp.com/go/vse

HP VSE Management Software Installation, http://docs.hp.com/en/T2786-90101/T2786-90101.pdf

HP VSE Tips for Application Developer, http://docs.hp.com/en/9450/vse_tips_for_application_developers.pdf

HP Virtualization Technology, http://www.hp.com/go/virtualization

HP Systems Insight Manager, http://www.hp.com/go/hpsim

HP Systems Insight Manager Installation and Configuration Guide, http://docs.hp.com/en/5991-4498/5991-4498.pdf

HP Serviceguard: http://docs.hp.com/en/ha.html

HP Instant Capacity, http://www.hp.com/go/utility

HP Integrity server: http://hp.com/go/integrity

HP Integrity Essentials, http://www.hp.com/go/integrityessentials

HP Integrity Essentials Global Workload Manager (gWLM), http://www.hp.com/go/gwlm

• For gWLM white papers and documentation, click the Information Library link on the right

• For gWLM online help, access online help in Systems Insight Manager by selecting Tools → VSE Management, followed by the tab Shared Resource Domain, and then the question mark [?] in the top right corner

IBM Information Management – Informix Product Family, http://www-306.ibm.com/software/data/informix

To help us improve our documents, please provide feedback at www.hp.com/solutions/feedback.

© 2008 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice. The only warranties for HP products and services are set forth in the express warranty statements accompanying such products and services. Nothing herein should be construed as constituting an additional warranty. HP shall not be liable for technical or editorial errors or omissions contained herein.

Intel and Itanium are trademarks of Intel Corporation in the U.S. and other countries.

4AA1-9747ENW, April 2008