 | Using IDA with Informix Dynamic Server
Introduction to InfoSphere Data Architect
IBM InfoSphere Data Architect (IDA), formerly Rational Data Architect,
is a collaborative data design solution to discover, model, relate,
and standardize diverse and distributed data assets. IDA is a
fundamental tool in any enterprise data environment because it enables
you to:
- Increase data quality and enterprise consistency by providing the
following capabilities:
- Establish and reuse a logical data model as the semantic hub
for enterprise architectures
- Automate data design tasks, such as being able to generate a
physical design for a particular data source from a logical
design; IDA supports heterogeneous data environments across
DB2, Informix, Oracle, Microsoft, Sybase, and mySQL
- Reverse engineer a physical model from an existing database
schema and compare and synchronize data models
- Analyze and enforce compliance to enterprise naming and data
element definition standards
- Create rules to generate names that comply to a standard or to
rules you define
- Import a business glossary or integrate with InfoSphere
Business Glossary
- Simplify and accelerate integration design by allowing you to
- Visualize the structure of your existing heterogeneous data
sources
- Understand the relationships of these data sources based on
characteristics of the data or on column metadata
- Define a relationship between existing data assets by using
point-and-click
- Drive greater alignment, control, and efficiency in the software
development process with the following capabilities
- Integrate with other Rational Software Development tools
including Rational RequisitePro, WebSphere Business Modeler,
Rational Software Modeler, Rational Software Architect for
WebSphere Software, and Rational ClearCase
- Simplify collaboration among business analysts, architects,
developers, and administrators
- Combine tools within the same Eclipse instance to move between
data-centric roles or share objects across geographically
distributed teams
Product manager
Anson Kokkat
has a blog entry on why the product was re-branded to InfoSphere and
how it is a key component of InfoSphere Foundation Tools. But the
basic uses of the product have not changed, and we think Informix DBAs
and modelers can get a lot of benefit from using it.
Launching IDA
Launch IDA by going to Start > All Programs
> IBM Software Delivery Platform > IBM
InfoSphere Data Architect 7.5.1 > IBM InfoSphere
Data Architect, as Figure 1 illustrates:
Figure 1. Launching
IDA
When the product is launching, it will ask you for a default workspace
location. Please pick either the default or give it an appropriate
directory location and click on OK. This launches the product
with the default perspective.
Connecting to an IDS instance
After launching the product, you should first connect to an Informix
database instance. In order to do that, make sure that the Data
perspective is showing, as Figure 2 shows. A data
perspective has the "Data Project Explorer" showing on the top left
corner and a "Data Source Explorer" showing on the bottom left
corner.
Figure 2. Data
perspective
If the Data perspective is not active, go to Window >
Open Perspective > Data, or go to
Window > Open Perspective >
Other, and select Data, as Figure 3 illustrates:
Figure 3. Switching
perspectives
Locate the Data Source Explorer in the lower left hand corner of the
screen, as Figure 4 shows:
Figure 4. Data Source
Explorer view
Once that is done, go to the "Data source Explorer" view and right
click on Databases > New. A wizard pops up;
Informix from the left side and enter the other details relevant to
your server, as shown in Figure 5:
Figure 5. Connecting
to Informix
Note: To add the location of the JDBC driver, click on the triangle
next to the JDBC Driver drop-down list in the New Connection wizard
(highlighted above in red). You can use the Informix JDBC driver or
the common IBM Data Server Driver for JDBC and SQLJ that provides
connectivity to both IDS (11.0 and later) and DB2. To use the common
driver, the Informix server has to be configured with DRDA.
Click on Test Connection to make sure your connection
parameters are correct and click on Finish when you are done.
This uses the defaults for all the other steps and gets you connected
to the database. You can then click on the database and explore into
the different database objects, as shown in Figure 6:
Figure 6. Navigating
into Informix objects
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