Overview of New Features in Version 8.51

IBM Informix Extended Parallel Server Version 8.51 introduces new or enhanced features in the following areas:

• Migration features
• Resource management features
• Security features
• Administrative utility display features.

New migration features include the following:

• Switching to or starting the database server in single-user mode
• Reformatting XPS data in external tables for DB2 or Windows.

New resource management features include the following:

• Allocating shared memory to resource classes
• Consolidating the storage spaces of a table
• Restricting the storage that non-DBA users can reference in DDL statements
• Forcing the execution of DDL operations
• Granting access privileges to roles WITH GRANT OPTION
• Increasing the maximum number of parallel KAIO requests on AIX systems
• Prohibiting globally detached indexes on nonlogging tables.

New security features include the following:

• Requiring a secure default directory for audit files.
• Requiring a secure default directory for shared memory dumps.

New administrative utility display features include the following:

• Displaying the plan of an executing query with the onmode -q explain session-id immediate command
• Displaying a bitmap page with the onutil DISPLAY PAGE command
• Enhanced onstat -g functionality

Sections that follow tersely describe each of these features. New features of XPS 8.51 that cannot be described by a few paragraphs in this chapter are documented in greater detail in chapters that follow.

Chapter 10 of this document summarizes the user interface enhancements of XPS 8.51 within the following logical categories:

• Configuration Parameters
• Environment Variables
• SQL Syntax
• Administrative Utility Command-Line Options