Informix Support & Managed Services

Our Informix support packages:

Basic Support

With our Basic Support package you will have on demand access to our Informix technical support team during UK office hours to assist with technical queries and service requests.

24*7 Support+

This is a premium support service which provides unlimited proactive incident response together with continuous monitoring and alerting of your Informix systems.

Remote DBA

Our Remote DBA service is a full managed service built on top of our 24*7 Support+ service. We become your trusted DBA team and we are available every hour of every day.

Why choose Informix support & managed services?

Reduced cost. As it becomes more difficult and expensive for organisations to find and retain highly skilled IT resource, a managed service option is often the most cost effective way of filling the gap. With our service options, you only pay for what you need. You don’t end up paying for full-time staff or contractors or, worse, trying to use already overstretched resource.
Reduced risk. A managed service option gives your company the flexibility to adapt to personnel changes, for example absence of key staff through holiday or sickness. It also gives you the ability to support 24*7 operation more cost-effectively. A more consistent and more reliable service delivery means lower risk.
Improved results. Companies can end up relying on untrained or unqualified staff to manage specialised IT systems simply because they don’t have an obvious alternative. This is often a false economy because of the amount of time required for people to “learn on the job” and the inevitable cost of “mistakes”. A managed service provides a safety net with qualified technicians using the right tools.

Compare our Informix service options

Technical Support Services	Basic Support	24x7 Support+	Remote DBA
Service Desk Access to our 24/7 Support Desk ensures any issues can be resolved as quickly as possible avoiding unnecessary business interruption.
Remote Diagnostic Support Following an incident, Oninit will log in and analyse the operating system or internal state of the database engine as necessary.
Remote Monitoring and Alerting Triggered by the database engine, custom scripts, or AGS Sentinel whenever any metric exceeds pre-determined thresholds.
Automated Daily Health Check Report Plain text email sent by each Informix server containing key data and filtered Informix message log output checked by humans daily.
Proactive Incident Response Any alert email classified as critical is also sent to the Oninit support team as a text message and repeated every 2 minutes until opened
Incident Management Cases are tracked using references from both customer and Oninit call logging systems, conforming to the highest procedural standards.
Problem Management Cases are tracked using references from both customer and Oninit call logging systems, conforming to the highest procedural standards.

Service Report and Service Delivery	Basic Support	24×7 Support+	Remote DBA
Monthly Service Report Graphical break-down of data from the Oninit call log for the previous month, identifying call profiles and effectiveness of service.
Monthly Technical Report Displays a wealth of statistics and analysis on the health of database servers and platforms, including traffic light and graphical output.
Monthly Recommendations Report Fully explains proposed actions following on from results in the Monthly Technical Report, placed in context and with clear priorities.
Monthly Recommendations Apply Independent preparation, testing and deployment of agreed changes from the Monthly Recommendations Report.
Dedicated Technical Account Manager Best of both worlds with a single common point of contact but with backup from other Oninit support team members as necessary.

Basic DBA Services	Basic Support	24×7 Support+	Remote DBA
Database Discovery Identify, classify and document all Informix servers and the platforms running them across the entire customer estate.
Monitoring Database Capacity 3-phase checking via immediate alerts, Daily Health Check and Monthly Technical Report, to avoid containers filling and rejecting inserts.
Monitoring Database Performance Continual monitoring by AGS Sentinel of a variety of key metrics enables clear recognition of new problems.
Monitoring Database Availability As well as database engine alarms, critical AGS Sentinel alerts are sent as text messages and repeated every 2 minutes until opened.
Monitoring Back-up and Recovery The filtered Informix message log output in the Daily Health Check provides a fail-safe over and above database engine alarms.
Monitoring DR and Failover Similar to the above, multiple alerting levels ensures awareness, together with custom scripting to check DR systems are up-to-date.
Database Software Patching Expertise and experience count to make any Informix maintenance or patch upgrade quick and painless, avoiding known issues.
Storage Allocation and Optimization Following on from Monitoring Database Capacity, disk space can be provisioned and contents partitioned or defragged appropriately.
Schema Comparison AGS Server Studio enables intelligent and selective highlighting of schema discrepancies before and after software changes.
Schema Change Management AGS Sentinel Change Management Option can schedule recording of schema deltas to audit and reproduce all DDL actions.
Configuration Management As above, used to audit any edits to the Informix $ONCONFIG file, so that performance history can be linked to database setup.
SQL Workload Sampling The worst performing statements can be located via AGS Sentinel SQL Capture (prepared statements), iWatch or SQLTRACE.
SQL Troubleshooting The worst performing statements can be located via AGS Sentinel SQL Capture (prepared statements), iWatch or SQLTRACE.
Test/Development Data Refresh Oninit has unique experience and tools to automate the reloading of production data to a given point in time.

Advanced DBA Services	Basic Support	24×7 Support+	Remote DBA
SQL Workload Analysis iWatch or SQLTRACE can identify SQL statements causing the greatest system load or frequently resulting in error conditions.
Data Archiving Oninit Archiver © automatically navigates table hierarchies while still efficiently unloading and block deleting per table.
SQL Auditing and Data Repair Infotrace can load data changes from logical log backups into audit tables, and undo or correct inadvertent mass updates.

Oninit’s Informix Support & Managed Services

Data is one of your most precious and valuable assets to your organisation. From sales reports and marketing spend to online transactions, the vast amount of data you accumulate every day and store in your database is crucial for planning and to measure business performance.

From organisations with small systems that are relatively stable to larger companies operating complex, multi-user, mission critical applications, every database requires maintenance and support to ensure optimal performance while maximising availability. And skilled Informix database administration is getting harder to find.

Based in the UK, our team of highly skilled database administrators (DBA) offer 24×7 technical support and managed database services for every aspect of Informix database maintenance, providing immediate and advanced technical assistance.

From health checks and migrations, to data recovery and resolving Informix performance bottlenecks, this bespoke service is available on site or remotely, 24×7, 365 days of the year.

Our 24×7 technical support also includes proactive monitoring and alerting and a monthly service report to give you a full view of your system’s performance.

Description	By default, our Basic Support package provides telephone and email support during UK office hours to assist with technical queries and service requests. Support services are limited to a set number of pre-purchased service hours.
Options	The Basic Support package can be upgraded to cover 24*7 support services and to include remote diagnostic support and IBM call escalation.
Key Features	• On demand access to Oninit service desk
Contract	Basic Support will include a full support contract and SLA if extended to 24*7 support.
Access & Security	Remote access is only required if service is extended 24*7 support.
Tools	No additional software tools are required.

Description	24*7 Support+ provides unlimited proactive incident response together with continuous monitoring and alerting of your Informix systems. Our monitoring tools provide our support team with a full 360 degree view of any Informix installation allowing us to respond quickly to any change of state and advise on improvements and corrections to avoid service degradation and outages.
Options	The package can be extended to include incident management and problem management services. Also, optionally, SQL workload analysis can be included with this service. The frequency of the technical report can be varied – by default, this is produced monthly.
Key Features	• On demand access to Oninit service desk • Continuous monitoring and alerting • Unlimited proactive incident response • Daily health check report • Monthly detailed technical report with recommendations
Contract	Full support contract and SLA.
Access & Security	Full remote access is required.
Tools	AGS Server Studio and AGS Sentinel are required.

Description	Our Remote DBA service is a full managed service built on top of our 24 x 7 Support+ service. We take day-to-day responsibility for the smooth operation of your Informix database systems and work with your systems, network, security and infrastructure teams to deliver world-class database administration.
Options	This package is based on our 24*7 Support+ service and includes incident management and problem management services. The number of DBA hours per month is restricted and can be varied.
Key Features	• On demand access to Oninit service desk • Continuous monitoring and alerting • Unlimited proactive incident response • Daily health check report • Monthly detailed technical report with recommendations • Defined DBA tasks are performed proactively as and when required
Contract	Full support contract and SLA.
Access & Security	Full remote access is required.
Tools	AGS Server Studio and AGS Sentinel are required.