The IBM Informix® Warehouse Accelerator is a breakthrough technology that changes how businesses can view and deploy analytics. Informix Warehouse Accelerator both delivers high performance for business queries and eliminates the need for query tuning, data management, and cube-building activities normally associated with enterprises seeking acceptable performance in analytics. Together with the Informix database server, it offers a single environment where traditional online transaction processing (OLTP) and current online analytical processing (OLAP) can be combined in a cost-effective manner.

This IBM® Redbooks® Solution Guide provides an overview of Informix Warehouse Accelerators. For more information about Informix Warehouse Accelerator, see Query Acceleration for Business using Informix Warehouse, SG24-8150.

IBM® Informix® Warehouse Accelerator is a state-of-the-art in-memory database designed to use affordable innovations in memory and processor technology and trends in novel ways to boost query performance (Figure 1). It is a disruptive technology that changes how organizations provide analytics to its operational and historical data. Informix Warehouse Accelerator uses a columnar, in-memory approach to accelerate even the most complex warehouse and operational queries without application changes or tuning.


Figure 1. IBM Informix Warehouse Accelerator helps boost query performance


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Change is constant, as is the need for higher speed in business. Data analysis helps organizations understand patterns, predict trends, and quickly adjust business flow. You can gain business advantage by quickly and consistently analyzing the latest data at a low total cost of ownership (TCO). Informix Warehouse Accelerator provides the powerful solution for your goal.


Business value

The Informix Warehouse Accelerator was designed to be completely transparent to any business applications so no application changes are required to take advantage of accelerated query performance. Users can use front-end analysis and reporting tools, such as IBM Cognos®, or develop mash-ups and other dashboards.

Informix offers tremendous cost-savings because it can run on commodity hardware and can simultaneously meet or surpass service level agreements for both transactional and analytical workloads, eliminating the need for separate OLAP systems.

The innovative approaches to complex query processing taken by Informix Warehouse Accelerator can help improve the productivity of an enterprise by providing quick answers without increasing the amount of manual work or budget required. Because the accelerator is tightly integrated with the Informix database server, database administrators (DBAs) can divide the load between the database server and the accelerator, as necessary.

Fast response time means quick answers, quick insights, and an agile business. Informix Warehouse Accelerator provides breakthrough warehouse analytical query performance without constantly monitoring and tuning the system. With Informix Warehouse Accelerator, enterprises can plan to accelerate the high-value aspect of their warehouses and dynamically evolve their infrastructures to suit business needs.


Solution overview
Informix Warehouse Accelerator, as the name suggests, is an accelerator to analytic queries to Informix. With Informix 11.7, Informix Warehouse Accelerator was released in 2011 with the ability to transparently accelerate analytical queries processed by Informix. It requires no change to SQL queries submitted to Informix and requires no indexing, partitioning, query optimization, summary tables, and so on, to obtain the significant improvement in query time.

The Informix Warehouse Accelerator product serves the small and medium business (SMB) segment, and large enterprises, with raw data sizes that range from a few hundred gigabytes to tens of terabytes. It is a software appliance that is not tied to particular hardware vendors. Configurations for memory and processors can be customized easily. Two editions of the software are available to meet different price points in the marketplace: