Monitoring Informix DB

Support information

To make sure that the Informix DB sensor is compatible with your current setup, check the following support information sections:

Supported operating systems

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The supported operating systems of the Informix DB sensor are consistent with host agents requirements, which can be checked in the Supported operating systems section of each host agent, such as Supported operating systems for Unix.

Supported versions and support policy

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The following table shows the latest supported version and support policy:


Technology	Support policy	Latest technology version	Latest supported version
Informix DB	On demand	15.0	14.0

For more information about the support policy, see Support strategy for sensors.

Installing OTel SDK for Informix DB

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Note: This SDK requires Java 11 to run.

To install OTel SDK for Informix DB, complete the following steps:

Download the .tar file from Releases.
Extract the .tar file by using the following command:
```
tar vxf otel-dc-rdb-X.Y.Z.tar
 
```
You can now see that the folder otel-dc-rdb-X.Y.Z is created.
Go to otel-dc-rdb-X.Y.Z directory:
```
cd otel-dc-rdb-X.Y.Z
 
```
Go to the config directory:
```
cd config
 
```
Modify the config-informix.yaml file with the details of the Informix DB. For more information, see GitHub.
The default configuration file is config/config.yaml. You can also use the environment variable DC_CONFIG to specify the configuration file as follows:
```
export DC_CONFIG=config/config-informix.yaml
 
```
Go back to the otel-dc-rdb-X.Y.Z directory, and then run the following command from the shell to run the Instana Otel SDK executable file for Informix DB:
```
./bin/otel-dc-rdb
 
```

Configuring Informix DB

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The Informix DB sensor supports both local and remote monitoring. Local monitoring occurs when the Instana OTel SDK for databases runs on the same host as the Informix DB. Remote monitoring occurs when the Instana OTel SDK for databases runs on a host other than the one where the Informix DB is running. To obtain optimum performance from the Informix DB sensor, use local monitoring. For both the cases, add the following configuration in the agent configuration.yaml file, and then start the agent.

# OpenTelemetry Collector
com.instana.plugin.opentelemetry:
  enabled: true
  grpc:
    enabled: true # takes precedence over legacy settings above, defaults to true if "grpc:" is present
  http:
    enabled: true # allows to enable http endpoints, defaults to true if "http:" is present

Local monitoring

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To configure local monitoring, complete the following steps:

Go to the config folder by using the following command:
```
cd config
 
```

Modify the config-informix.yaml file with the details of the Informix DB. For more information, see GitHub.

See the following sample configuration file:

db.system: informix #Keep as it is
db.driver: com.informix.jdbc.IfxDriver #Keep as it is
instances:
  - db.address: xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx #IP Address
    db.port: 9088 #Port on which DB is running
    db.serverName: ol_informix1410
    db.username: Informix_User_Name
    ### Either use password with Base 64 encoding or use vault configuration.
    db.password: BASE64_Encoded_Password
    #db.password:
    # vault_secret.path: #path to the vault secret. Example: /kv/instana/informix
    # vault_secret.key: #Provide the VaultSecretKey name
    db.name: InformixDB
    db.path: /opt/IBM/Informix_Software_Bundle

    #OTel properties:
    otel.service.name: InformixDB #Keep as it is

    #Data collector properties:
    #Either use `poll.interval` or `custom.poll.interval`
    #poll.interval: 30
    #All three category value is Mandatory if leveraging Custom Poll Rate
    custom.poll.interval:
      high: 300 #polling_value_in_sec
      medium: 45 #polling_value_in_sec
      low: 20 #polling_value_in_sec
    callback.interval: 20 #Keep as it is
    otel.backend.url: http://127.0.0.1:4317 #Point to the running agent

    #Custom Input
    custom.input: # Optional
      #Time Frame for which you want to get the expensive query. Default value 900 Sec
      db.sql.elapsed.timeframe: 900   # Values should be in Seconds
      db.sequential.scan.count: 0
      db.sql.trace.enabled: false #Default is false. Make it true only if `SqlTrace` is enabled for the DB.
    ### Uncomment the below section in case you are using Vault to retrieve the password.
    # vault:
    #  connection_url: #Vault Address URL
    #  token: #Vault Token
    #  #Use the pem file path in case you are using TLS/SSL connection for vault.
    #  #path_to_pem_file: auth/web-cert.pem
    #  kv_version: 2 #It is the vault version. Please crosscheck your configuration.

Note: When you need to provide the plaintext password, the value of the db.password must be a Base64 encoded text.The vault configuration details must be disabled in that case.The SDK also supports vault based authentication mechanism.When the password needs to be provided through the vault configurations,they must be added to the db.password field.

We provide the following vault configuration details to the db.password field :

vault_secret.path: Specify the path of the vault secret in this field.
vault_secret.key: Specify the vault based authentication key in this field.

Also, the "vault" key in the configuration must be enabled while using the Vault authentication mechanism. The following fields must also be enabled:

connection_url: The URL of the Vault address
token: The value of the Vault token
path_to_pem_file: The path to the pem file in case the TLS/SSL connection is used for vault.
kv_version: The version of the Vault

To learn more about configuring Vault, refer the official Vault documentation.

Remote monitoring

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To run the SDK in a different system from that of the agent, add the following configuration to the backend.cfg file in /instana-agent/etc/instana/com.instana.agent.main.config.Agent.cfg.

#If your DC is in a different host from your Instana Agent

http.listen=*

In remote monitoring, the Instana OTel SDK runs on a different host than that of the Informix DB.

The sample configuration file for single database is as follows:

db.system: informix #Keep as it is
db.driver: com.informix.jdbc.IfxDriver #Keep as it is
instances:
  - db.address: xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx #IP Address
    db.port: 9088 #Port on which DB is running
    db.serverName: ol_informix1410
    db.username: Informix_User_Name
    ### Either use password with Base 64 encoding or use vault configuration.
    db.password: BASE64_Encoded_Password
    #db.password:
    #  vault_secret.path: #path to the vault secret. Example: /kv/instana/informix
    #  vault_secret.key: #Provide the VaultSecretKey name
    db.name: InformixDB
    db.path: /opt/IBM/Informix_Software_Bundle

    #OTel properties:
    otel.service.name: InformixDB #Keep as it is

    #Data collector properties:
    #Either use `poll.interval` or `custom.poll.interval`
    #poll.interval: 30
    #All three category value is Mandatory if leveraging Custom Poll Rate
    custom.poll.interval:
      high: 300 #polling_value_in_sec
      medium: 45 #polling_value_in_sec
      low: 20 #polling_value_in_sec
    callback.interval: 20 #Keep as it is
    otel.backend.url: http://<ip_of_host_having_instana_otel_sdk>:4317 #Point to the running agent

    #Custom Input
    custom.input: # Optional
      #Time Frame for which you want to get the expensive query. Default value 900 Sec
      db.sql.elapsed.timeframe: 900   # Values should be in Seconds
      db.sequential.scan.count: 0
      db.sql.trace.enabled: false #Default is false. Make it true only if `SqlTrace` is enabled for the DB.
     ### Uncomment the below section in case you are using Vault to retrieve the password.
     # vault:
        #  connection_url: #Vault Address URL
        #  token: #Vault Token
        #  #Use the pem file path in case you are using TLS/SSL connection for vault.
        #  #path_to_pem_file: auth/web-cert.pem
        #  kv_version: 2 #It is the vault version. Please crosscheck your configuration.

The sample configuration file for multiple databases is as follows:

db.system: informix #Keep as it is
db.driver: com.informix.jdbc.IfxDriver #Keep as it is
instances:
  - db.address: xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx #IP Address
    db.port: 9088 #Port on which DB is running
    db.serverName: ol_informix1410
    db.username: Informix_User_Name
    ### Either use password with Base 64 encoding or use vault configuration.
    db.password: BASE64_Encoded_Password
    #db.password:
    #  vault_secret.path: #path to the vault secret. Example: /kv/instana/informix
    #  vault_secret.key: #Provide the VaultSecretKey name
    db.name: InformixDB
    db.path: /opt/IBM/Informix_Software_Bundle

    #OTel properties:
    otel.service.name: InformixDB #Keep as it is

    #Data collector properties:
    #Either use `poll.interval` or `custom.poll.interval`
    #poll.interval: 30
    #All three category value is Mandatory if leveraging Custom Poll Rate
    custom.poll.interval:
      high: 300 #polling_value_in_sec
      medium: 45 #polling_value_in_sec
      low: 20 #polling_value_in_sec
    callback.interval: 20 #Keep as it is
    otel.backend.url: http://127.0.0.1:4317 #Point to the running agent

    #Custom Input
    custom.input: # Optional
      #Time Frame for which you want to get the expensive query. Default value 900 Sec
      db.sql.elapsed.timeframe: 900   # Values should be in Seconds
      db.sequential.scan.count: 0

  - db.address: xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx #IP Address
    db.port: 9088 #Port on which DB is running
    db.serverName: ol_informix1410
    db.username: Informix_User_Name
    ### Either use password with Base 64 encoding or use vault configuration.
    db.password: BASE64_Encoded_Password
    #db.password:
    #  vault_secret.path: #path to the vault secret. Example: /kv/instana/informix
    #  vault_secret.key: #Provide the VaultSecretKey name
    db.name: InformixDB
    db.path: /opt/IBM/Informix_Software_Bundle

    #OTel properties:
    otel.service.name: InformixDB #Keep as it is

    #Data collector properties:
    #Either use `poll.interval` or `custom.poll.interval`
    #poll.interval: 30
    #All three category value is Mandatory if leveraging Custom Poll Rate
    custom.poll.interval:
      high: 300 #polling_value_in_sec
      medium: 45 #polling_value_in_sec
      low: 20 #polling_value_in_sec
    callback.interval: 20 #Keep as it is
    otel.backend.url: http://127.0.0.1:4317 #Point to the running agent

    #Custom Input
    custom.input: # Optional
      #Time Frame for which you want to get the expensive query. Default value 900 Sec
      db.sql.elapsed.timeframe: 900   # Values should be in Seconds
      db.sql.trace.enabled: false #Default is false. Make it true only if `SqlTrace` is enabled for the DB.
    ### Uncomment the below section in case you are using Vault to retrieve the password.
     # vault:
        #  connection_url: #Vault Address URL
        #  token: #Vault Token
        #  #Use the pem file path in case you are using TLS/SSL connection for vault.
        #  #path_to_pem_file: auth/web-cert.pem
        #  kv_version: 2 #It is the vault version. Please crosscheck your configuration.

Viewing metrics

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To view the metrics, complete the following steps:

From the navigation menu in the Instana UI, select Infrastructure.
Click a specific monitored host.

You can see a host dashboard with all the collected metrics and monitored processes.

The following metrics are available for each Informix DB sensor:


Metric	Description	Local or Remote support	Poll interval category
Instance Count	Number of Informix DB instances	Remote (SQL)	Short
Active Instance Count	Number of Informix DB instances that are active	Remote (SQL)	Short
Session Count	Number of Informix DB sessions	Local (CMD)	Short
Active Session Count	Number of Informix DB sessions that are active	Local (CMD)	Short
Transaction Count	Number of Informix DB transactions	Local (CMD)	Medium
Transaction Latency Count	Transaction latency	Local (CMD)	Medium
SQL Count	Number of queries that are executed	Local (CMD)	Medium
SQL Per Second	Number of queries that are executed per second	Local (CMD)	Medium
IO read Count	Number of IO reads	Local (CMD)	Short
IO write Count	Number of IO writes	Local (CMD)	Short
SQL Elapsed Time	Most time-consuming queries with their execution time	Remote (SQL)	Medium
Disk Writes	Number of disk writes	Local (CMD)	Short
Disk reads	Number of disk reads	Local (CMD)	Short
Scans	Number of sequential scans for every table	Remote (SQL)	Short
Table Scans	Number of Informix DB sessions with the sequential scans	Remote (SQL)	Short
Overflow - Lock	Number of times a thread attempted to acquire a lock when locks were not available	Local (CMD)	Short
Overflow - User	Number of times a user thread attempted to acquire a lock when locks were not available	Local (CMD)	Short
Overflow - Transaction	Number of times a thread attempted to allocate an entry in the transaction table when the entries in the shared-memory table were not available	Local (CMD)	Short
Memory Utilization	Amount of memory used	Local (CMD)	Short
Buffer Cache Ratio (Read)	Percentage of page reads satisfied by a cached page image	Local (CMD)	Short
Buffer Cache Ratio (Write)	Percentage of page writes satisfied by a cached page image	Local (CMD)	Short
LRU Writes	Number of Least Recently Used (LRU) writes performed	Local (CMD)	Short
Database Lock Waits	Number of threads waiting for a lock	Local (CMD)	Short
Table Space	Information about available and used storage of the top 20 tables in the database	Remote (SQL)	Long

Local support: Metrics are collected directly from the system by using the onstat command.
Remote support: Metrics are collected through SQL queries, which can be executed either locally or remotely. Thus, these metrics are supported in both local and remote monitoring.
Poll interval categories: Each metric is assigned to a polling interval category: Short, Medium, or Long. The polling interval determines the rate or time that is used for metric extraction.
Default polling intervals are set to:
- Short - 20 seconds
- Medium - 45 seconds
- Long - 300 seconds.