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PREFACE:
Preface
The topic of this book seems very clear. Unfortunately, writing the book and keeping it focused on the responsibilities of the Informix® Database Administrator (DBA) are not so clear. The lines of responsibility among the Informix DBA, R/3TM Basis Administrator, UNIX System Administrator, and several other job roles are often fuzzy. Where does one line of responsibility end and another start? Often, the Informix DBA needs to be more knowledgeable in areas that traditionally have not been DBA responsibilities.
This book is neither an R/3 administration manual nor an Informix administration manual. You will find many other good books for administering the R/3 environment listed in the Bibliography and other resources. Very few resources concentrate on R/3 using the Informix database or the responsibilities of the Informix Database Administrator. This book describes the interaction and interoperability between SAPTM R/3 and the Informix database and is written for the UNIX Informix-knowledgeable Database Administrator who is cast into the world of SAP R/3. What the heck is this SAP R/3 stuff? Is it different from other applications and do I now do my job differently? You as the Informix Database Administrator may not be administering SAP R/3, but you should have an understanding of what SAP R/3 is and what your responsibilities are. The R/3 Informix database is a complex piece of software that must be properly implemented, monitored, and maintained in order to assure a successful R/3 implementation. That's where you come in. To the Informix Database Administrator, SAP R/3 isjust another application, right? This book will attempt to answer all these questions and many more.
SAP R/3 for the Informix DBA is separated into three sections. The first section is a very high-level introduction to SAP R/3 and Informix, and the material you need to know to work with the two products. The second section covers the administration, maintenance, and tools of an R/3 environment using the Informix database. Much of this information provides details that are applicable to many application environments and many database management systems (DBMS), but the slant is toward an SAP R/3 application. The last section of the book discusses monitoring and tuning the R/3 Informix environment using SAP R/3 and Informix tools.
This book primarily addresses R/3 running in UNIX operating system environments, even though there is an increasing amount of R/3 being installed and already installed in NT environments. Generally, the items in this book related to Informix and R/3 are the same regardless of the hardware platform. Remember R/3 is hardware independent! The R/3 screenshots displayed throughout the book are the same whether R/3 runs on UNIX or NT; the SAP graphical user interface (SAPGUI) is responsible for the user presentation of the R/3 data. One of the major differences between Informix running on NT versus UNIX is the use of the Informix tool onmonitor and the R/3 tool sapdba. The onmonitor and sapdba tools have graphical user interfaces for NT rather than UNIX line commands. In NT, most of the UNIX line commands are replaced with graphical user interfaces. To use UNIX line commands, or to make your NT environment resemble a UNIX-like environment (so you can use the vi editor!), products such as the MKS ToolKit can be used.