To refresh the data in a data mart of the Informix Warehouse Accelerator, the data mart must be loaded with a new set of the complete data. This can be done by dropping the existing data mart, re-creating it and then loading it with the new data. This means that the data mart is not available during the load process of the new data. For this, a second data mart with the same definition, but a different name, needs to be created and loaded. While this new data mart is being loaded, the old data mart is still available for query acceleration.

So far so good - but with Informix version 11.70.FC4 you benefit from the following:

As soon as loading of the new data mart is complete, the new data mart will become automatically active! From that moment onwards it will be utilized for the acceleration of newly arriving queries. This switch over to the new data mart happens automatically in the optimizer of the Informix Server, where it is decided, whether a query can be accelerated. As soon as the last query utilizing the old data mart has completed, the old data mart can be dropped manually.

This method will lead to easier database administration, save time and enables the ever fastest possible provisioning of actual date for company based data management processes.

It should be noted however, that this method of data refresh requires the double of the memory space needed normally for the data mart, though only for a short time. Therefore the size of the shared memory available for the worker nodes may need to be adjusted accordingly.