Monitoring Informix Dynamic Servers

eG Enterprise presents an exclusive Informix monitoring model (see Figure 1) that consists of a set of hierarchical layers, each of which is associated with a wide variety of tests.

Figure 1 : The layer model of an Informix database server

These tests, which are configured to execute on the Informix server periodically, extract a wide range of performance statistics from the server. These statistics reveal the following:

• Is the Informix database server available? If so, how quickly does it respond to user requests?
• Is any virtual processor class consuming CPU resources excessively?
• Are buffers being effectively used while reading/writing data, or are direct disk reads and writes high?
• How well does the database manage locks? Are too many requests waiting for locks? Are there a large number of deadlocks?
• Do the logical logs have adequate free pages?
• Are any chunks on the Informix server in an offline or inconsistent state? If so, which are tehy?
• Is any chunk experiencing a space crunch?
• Is any dbspace running out of free space?
• Are users able to access data quickly? Are sorts on disk and memory performed frequently to ensure quick and easy access?
• Are there too many open sessions on the server? Who initiated the sessions, and how long have they been open?
• Are transaction rollbacks kept at a minimum?
• Have too many transactions been running for a long time?