Server Studio™

Your IBM Informix® data servers environment may be complex, but the tools to manage it don't have to be. Server Studio™ is the premier graphical development and management environment that features a rich collection of modern tools which help both seasoned database professionals and novices alike manage IBM Informix® data servers infrastructure with an unprecedented ease and improved productivity. This multi-platform suite of integrated, state-of-the-art system management tools helps organizations ensure that critical database applications remain up and perform at peak levels, manage change and assure continuing availability of vital business information.
Created by AGS database experts in very close cooperation with IBM, Server Studio™ provides a comprehensive collection of modern, easy-to-use, proven tools for DBAs and developers that emulate natural workflow and improve efficiency of performing common database tasks such as:
- Data Server Administration
- SQL Development and Debugging
- Schema Management
- Configuration Auditing and Change Management
- Performance Tuning
- Data Storage Management and Reorganization
- Database Security Administration
Highly intuitive, interactive functionality of Server Studio™ helps make short work of tasks that otherwise would consume hours of your valuable time.
A cohesive integrated graphical console unites all development, administration and maintenance activities for your entire infrastructure of IBM Informix® data servers at a centralized point of control and helps maximize availability, performance and maintainability of your vital databases, regardless of whether your servers are all in one location, or at remote sites around the world.
Server Studio™, together with Sentinel™, provide wide-ranging functionality to support your organization’s vital IBM Informix® databases — from initial design, development and testing, all the way through to production deployment and successful operational service.
Highlights
In today’s business, database applications must be developed at an ever increasing pace and maintained with fewer resources, while meeting demands to maximize their performance and availability.
Server Studio™ is the premier multi-platform professional development and management environment for IBM Informix® data servers with an intuitive graphical user interface which seamlessly integrates feature-rich, powerful and compact suite of advanced DBMS tools that make support of your vital databases throughout their entire life cycle easier and more productive than ever.
Power and flexibility of Server Studio™ helps keep IBM Informix® data servers organizations depend on for vital information performing at peak levels by simplifying and automating day-to-day operational tasks.
Key Features
- Administration
- Database Development and Debugging
- Pre-Deployment Testing
- Configuration and Change Management
- Data Management
- Storage Management and Database Reorganization
- Performance Diagnostics, Management and System Automation
Administration
The state-of-the-art integrated workbench in Server Studio™ provides a well-rounded environment for DBAs and developers to manage one or multiple IBM Informix® data servers with ease — there is no need to be an expert.
The Object Explorer module serves as a convenient central point for effortless navigation and administration of your entire data servers infrastructure. Interactive multi-tabbed console eliminates lengthy properties drill-downs to help you immediately examine in-depth all details of the selected database object and enables you to quickly create, drop or alter database objects to accommodate business and application needs.
The Server Administrator module provides powerful views and pre-configured reports of performance information across multiple instances or databases and helps you handle common tasks such as: managing user sessions and server's operational modes, or examining server's profile, ONCONFIG parameters, I/O statistics and the details of log files. The Server Administrator's built-in secure terminal automatically connects to the desired server host and sets all required environment variables, enabling you to execute transparently any of your favorite utilities, such as ONSTAT, ONMODE, ONTAPE, ONBAR, as well as any other server-side script or shell command.
The Sessions Manager facilities of the Server Administrator provide you with ability to analyze user sessions' activity by host computer, database, maximum number of locks and I/O activity to flag sessions that create server bottlenecks. Problematic database user sessions can be easily terminated. SQL statements last executed by any user session can be captured for subsequent performance tuning with the help of the Execution Plan Analyzer.
The Security Manager module significantly reduces complexities of managing data server security by making it easy to add new or edit the existing users and roles, grant or revoke permissions for users, roles and database objects, and assign users to roles. Security Manager also helps in maintaining database security by automatically recovering and applying all previously defined permissions to any object after it has been modified.
Database Development and Debugging
Server Studio™ is the premier integrated development environment for IBM Informix® data servers, with powerful editors and wizards that improve developer productivity, minimize errors and dramatically decrease development time for stored procedures, SQL scripts and schemas. By replacing error-prone, time-consuming, command-line-driven traditional query and script execution facilities with a modern, intuitive graphical interface, Server Studio™ provides a fast, configurable and easy-to-use development environment that enables users to work simultaneously on multiple database objects.
The SQL Manager module is a full-featured, multi-threaded, color-coded editor, customized specifically to support IBM Informix® SPL and SQL syntax. Its code-completion facilities assist during development to look up and finalize table, views and column names, plus commonly used SQL keywords. SQL Manager provides: non-blocking execution of scripts; display of multiple query result sets in spreadsheet-style grids; syntax checking of an entire script or just the highlighted portion; and fully supports LOAD and UNLOAD statements to provide data import and export functionality within SQL statements.
SQL Manager's integration with the Execution Plan Analyzer module enables in-place examination of the SQL statements' key statistics (i.e. number of rows affected by the operation, execution and fetch time for each query executed), as well as near instantaneous graphical analysis of the execution plan — with relative percentage of the overall estimated cost presented for each distinct segment of the SQL statement to highlight potential fragments of code that may negatively impact performance.
The Table Manager module is a comprehensive visual manager for database Tables and Views that provides highly granular access to their vital attributes, including: columns, datatypes, primary and foreign keys, indexes, referential integrity constraints, as well as table and index physical storage fragmentation schema. With Table Manager, it is easy to graphically examine in-depth or to alter the properties of the database's tables and views, or to create new ones.
The SPL Debugger module is the only interactive debugger for IBM Informix® databases' stored procedures and triggers available on the market and contains powerful capabilities usually found only in high level programming languages. It enables you to: execute stored procedures and triggers line-by-line, step into nested procedures or fired triggers, set breakpoints, watch and modify values of procedures' variables and calling arguments, break infinite loops and so on. SPL Debugger can be invoked from any client application or development tool, such as Visual Basic, C++ or Informix-4GL and can "hook" into a stored procedure or trigger already executing on the server — enabling you to identify the cause of an infinite loop or to pinpoint the slowest portion of the code.
SPL Debugger is available only in the Professional or Suite Editions of Server Studio™ and requires for Server Studio™ to be installed on a host computer with
Windows 7/10/11/2008/2012/2016/2019/2022 operating system to function.
Pre-Deployment Testing
Server Studio™ pre-deployment testing facilities help DBAs and application developers pinpoint DBMS system bottlenecks and set performance benchmarks by gathering data server's operational parameters measurements under real-life load scenarios to identify point-of-system failures and achieve required levels of database performance.
The Benchmark Runner module provides a comprehensive testing solution that effectively simulates real-life load scenarios of hundreds or thousands of users simultaneously accessing your database and automatically measures client-side response time. To analyze the impact of changes to the database or the server's configuration on your application's ability to achieve required performance level objectives, Benchmark Runner's flexible load scenarios enable you to create consistent performance benchmark tests with fully parametric queries for variety of transactions (i.e. OLTP, decision support, etc.) to test your database application throughout the expected range of its operational conditions before production deployment.
The Test Data Generator facilities of the Data Manager module assist developers and QA engineers to quickly and easily populate test databases with millions of rows of meaningful, syntactically correct test data, unique indexes and other dependencies, while fully maintaining referential integrity constraints. It supports number of data value generation options including: random, text file-based or values obtained from a database and provides the ability to specify data ranges, text data patterns, sequential, BLOB and CLOB data generation methods. Test Data Generator enables application testing with enough data to give a realistic picture of database performance in production environments.
Configuration and Change Management
Server Studio™ configuration and change management facilities ease deployment of IBM Informix® databases — from development, to test, to production — and help preserve database investment with comprehensive diagnostics, documentation and administration tools.
The Schema Manager module is highly intuitive graphical tool for effective management of the DDL scripts either for entire database schemas, or user-defined sub-schemas that may be comprised of particular types or groups of database objects. Full support for managing all dependent database objects to maintain the integrity of the user-defined sub-schemas is built-in. Schema Manager can directly deploy database schemas or sub-schemas and allows you to specify how to map DB spaces and BLOB spaces from the source to the target server.
The Entity-Relationship Diagramer module enables near instantaneous graphical analysis of complex relationships and dependencies between database objects, such as: Tables, Views, Indexes, Stored Procedures and Triggers. E/R Diagrams provide vital help in visualizing and documenting databases' logical design and constraints. It permits reverse-engineering of the logical schema for the entire database or creation of sub-schema E-R Diagrams to the desired level of object nesting based on user-selected subset of database objects.
The Dependencies Analyzer module is a graphical change impact analysis tool that helps examine "up" and "down" dependencies of any database object, including complex referential integrity constraints and call trees for stored procedures and triggers. It also provides powerful functionality to search for any usage pattern of an object within a single or across multiple databases, or for particular text string within the syntax of any database object. Results of dependencies analysis or database searches are conveniently presented in a graphical drill-down tree form that not only lists all dependent objects, but also enables detailed contextual examination of the object's usage pattern and the relevant SQL syntax.
The DB Difference Analyzer module is a powerful change management tool for performing comparative analysis and synchronization between databases. Entire databases — including table structures, fragmentation schema, referential integrity, as well as syntax of stored procedures, triggers and views — their individual objects, or select group of objects can be examined in detail for any changes, regardless of whether databases are located on the same or on different servers. It is also capable of performing differential analysis between ONCONFIG parameters of two IBM Informix® data servers, or any two files, such as SQL scripts or text-based data files. To help manage change effectively, DB Difference Analyzer provides powerful facilities to automatically generate synchronization scripts with flexibility to specify which database objects are to be included in the synchronization process and to designate which database is to serve as the source and which as the target.
Data Difference functionality of the DB Difference Analyzer module facilitates efficient tracking of changes to the data contained in tables or database systems' metadata. It is capable of efficiently performing comparative analysis and synchronization of tables containing millions of records.
Data Management
The Data Manager module's spreadsheet-style grid facilitates interactive examination and editing of the data in the tables, synonyms and views. Flexible rules — based on user-defined filters, sorts or rows retrieval limits — help in defining working data sets. The built-in Cell Editor enables visual editing of large size text data or complex datatypes (i.e. ROW TYPES, LISTS), as well as direct import of binary data and images into table columns. Powerful Data Import and Export Wizards assist in mapping multiple external data files to database objects and defining complex data transformation rules. Data Manager fully supports non-blocking execution of multiple data loading and unloading jobs against a single or multiple databases simultaneously.
The HPL Manager module's intuitive, easy-to-use graphical management facilities provide efficient loading and unloading of vast volumes of data from or to any combination of the data sources such as files, tapes, or application pipes (for UNIX). It fully supports generation of the Informix® High Performance Loader ("HPL") components such as device array definitions, formats, queries, maps, filters and projects. HPL Manager's client/server architecture enables efficient administration of onpload database on any IBM Informix® data server across the enterprise network. Server Administrator's Reorganization Wizard takes full advantage of HPL Manager's capability to efficiently handle loading and unloading massive quantities of data during database reorganization.
The most common use of Data Masking is to create test data for non-production environments, such as application development and QA, while protecting personally identifiable, personally sensitive or commercially sensitive data. Development and QA department personnel usually do not have required security clearance to access actual production data. However, in order to create and test robust business applications, they need to work with data sets that closely resemble real-world data. Server Studio provides a number of data masking methods, such as Random Substitution, Substitution from Database objects and Files, Shuffling, Number and Date Variance, Masking Out of text data, and more.
Storage Management and Database Reorganization
Server Studio's Server Administrator module provides extensive built-in data storage management facilities for DBAs to improve utilization efficiency of scarce data storage resources and optimize performance by reorganizing and restructuring IBM Informix® databases with minimal application downtime.
The Storage Manager enables DBAs to easily create, delete and effectively manage utilization of DB Spaces, BLOB Spaces and Chunks storage resources allocated to the server's resident databases. Performance problems, such as low scan density, can be quickly detected by visually examining relative distribution of allocated, filled and free amounts of data and indexes storage space and by locating tables with high degree of fragmentation.
The Extent Size Calculator helps reduce unnecessary database tables fragmentation, which can negatively affect SQL queries performance and the amount of disk storage space consumed. It enables DBAs to optimize physical data storage distribution schema by recommending optimal values for table's FIRST and NEXT EXTENT parameters — based on estimated number of rows, related indexes and small blob data overhead.
The Reorganization Wizard helps DBAs easily resolve data storage space utilization and performance problems by reorganizing table structure and data allocation to reduce the number of table extents, reclaiming wasted space, moving data to a different DB Spaces or fragmenting it between multiple DB Spaces.
Performance Diagnostics, Management and System Automation
Server Studio™ together with Sentinel™ provide an extensive array of sophisticated diagnostics tools to optimize server’s performance, based on continuous time-series measurements of over 160 real-time operational parameters obtained from IBM Informix® data server and its host platform. Collected measurements data is presented either as multi-parameter time-series charts or hourly, daily or monthly histograms to perform diagnostic analysis and resource utilization profiling.
The SQL Capture facilities of Sentinel™ provide flexible dynamic retrieval of SQL statements running on the IBM Informix® server. SQL Capture is highly selective with ability to specify which SQL statements are to be retrieved — based on session user login name, client host, Informix session ID, or SQL statement’s execution statistical parameters such as: estimated cost, estimated number of retrieved rows or number of sequential scans.
Server Studio™ Editions Features Comparison
Server Studio™ comes in several editions that provide various combinations of features and functionality to suite individual user's specific needs. These editions are:
- Core Edition
- Standard Edition
- Developer Edition
- Professional Edition (includes SPL Debugger)
- Enterprise Edition
- Suite Edition (includes SPL Debugger)
Feature | Core | Std. | Dev. | Pro. | Ent. | Suite |
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Administration | ||||||
Connections Manager | ![]() |
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Object Explorer | ![]() |
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Server Administrator | ![]() |
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Sessions Manager | ![]() |
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Command Console | ![]() |
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Security Manager | ![]() |
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Database Development and Debugging | ||||||
Table Manager | ![]() |
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SQL Editor | ![]() |
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SQL Manager | ![]() |
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Execution Plan Analyzer | ![]() |
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SPL Debugger | ![]() |
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Pre-Deployment Testing | ||||||
Test Data Generator | ![]() |
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Benchmark Runner | ![]() |
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Configuration and Change Management | ||||||
Schema Manager | ![]() |
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E-R Diagramer | ![]() |
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Dependencies Analyzer | ![]() |
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DB Difference Analyzer | ![]() |
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Data Management | ||||||
Data Manager | ![]() |
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HPL Manager | ![]() |
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Storage Management & Database Reorganization | ||||||
Storage Manager | ![]() |
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Extent Size Calculator | ![]() |
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Reorganization Wizard | ![]() |
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Performance Diagnostics, Management & System Automation | ||||||
Sentinel™ Console | ![]() |
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Server Studio™ runs on most systems that have a Microsoft Windows, UNIX or Linux operating system. We recommend a minimum of 125MB of disk space, 256MB of memory and one CPU. Server Studio™ requires Sun Microsystems' Java 2 Platform, Standard Edition (J2SE) Version 1.7/1.8 or a compatible runtime environment to operate.
Please note: Installations employing on the same host computer Server Studio™ and Sentinel™ for continuous collection of IBM Informix® data servers' performance matrix may require larger disk space to accommodate time-series data repository.
Supported Database Servers
- IBM Informix® Dynamic Server (IDS) V.7.x, V.9.x, V.10.X, V.11.X, V.12.10, V.14.10, V.15.0
- IBM Informix® Extended Parallel Server (XPS) V. 8.3
- IBM Informix® OnLine V.5.10
Host Computer Platforms
Operating System | Software | Hardware |
AIX | 32-bit, Version 5.1 and above | Power |
HP-UX | 32-bit, Version 11 and above | PA-RISC |
Linux | Linux Kernel 2.2.12 and above | Intel or AMD |
Solaris | 32-bit, Version 2.6 and above | Sparc (from Sun and Fujitsu-Siemens) |
MAC OS X | 32-bit, Version 10.5.6 or later | Intel |
Windows 7 | 32 & 64 bit | Intel or AMD |
Windows 10 | 32 & 64 bit | Intel or AMD |
Windows 11 | 32 & 64 bit | Intel or AMD |
Windows Server 2008 R2 | 32 & 64 bit | Intel or AMD |
Windows Server 2012 | 32 & 64 bit | Intel or AMD |
Windows Server 2016 | 32 & 64 bit | Intel or AMD |
Windows Server 2019 | 32 & 64 bit | Intel or AMD |
Windows Server 2022 | 32 & 64 bit | Intel or AMD |
Other | Any operating system compatible with Oracle Java 2 Platform, Standard Edition (J2SE) Version 1.7/1.8 (32-bit & 64-bit) runtime environment. |