InterSystems Caché 2012.2 release

Key innovations:
1. Processing unstructured data in BI (iKnow + DeepSee).
2. DeepSee Visual Reporting - WYSIWYG editor for DeepSee / Zen reports in the browser.
3.Support Node.js,
4. Regular expressions in Caché ObjectScript
5. Support .NET eXTreme for the fastest direct access to globals.
6. Java eXTreme over TCP,
7. Asynchronous rollback for ECP connections.

Deepsee

Unstructured data support in DeepSee

DeepSee now supports unstructured data. In DeepSee cubes, you can use plain text as dimensions or indicators. In particular, with the help of iKnow technology, this text is analyzed and concepts (concepts) are extracted from it, which can then be used as measurement elements.
Cubes can contain measurements from both structured and unstructured data. Unstructured measurements, like conventional ones, are available through the Analyzer, display panels and software MDX queries. More details .

Term lists

Lists of terms have appeared in DeepSee. The term list is a set of key / value pairs that can be used for substitution of values ​​and translations both when building cubes and at runtime in MDX expressions using the% TERMLIST function. To manage the terms, a new Term List Manager tool has appeared in the DeepSee tab of the control panel.

DeepSee Business Rules

Now Ensemble business rules can be used when building a cube. In the sourceExpression of a dimension or measure, you can specify the% Rule method to invoke a business rule. When building cube data, the current fact record is passed to the method and the business rule returns the value for this fact.
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Visual Report Editor DeepSee (DeepSee Visual Reporting)

With this release for Caché, Ensemble and HealthShare users (Ensemble and HealthShare are based on Caché), it is possible to visually build reports in the browser (drag-n-drop and other nice features).
DeepSee Visual Reporting technology consists of three modules:
1. Definition of data sources of the report (Report Data Definition)
DeepSee provides a visual browser interface for defining report data sources and in which sections of the report this data will be placed.
2. Report Format Definition
In this module, for well-known sources of report data, you can define the format of data output. The work on report formatting, as well as working with data, is performed using a browser interface with the ability to preview the report.
3. Report Execution
The module is responsible for the execution of reports and for user access to the execution of reports.

Application Development

IKnow development

In this release, iKnow API has received a new package Semantics. The package contains two main sets of new features:

Semantic dominance

Semantic dominance is a term that describes how important an element of a text (word, concept, set of concepts, sentence) is in the context of the whole text and in relation to the rest of the text information. The semantic dominance API allows applications to define:

semantically the most important elements of a particular source that are most significant in a domain or a subset of domains;
how the prevailing elements are distributed between different texts; most typical / atypical for the domain. More details.

Similarity (Proximity)

Using the Proximity API, you can now find similar concepts for a selected concept in certain text. The functions of this API are used to search for concepts associated with the selected concept and to determine how strong this association is. When calculating the semantic similarity in the course of analyzing the content of a specific domain for the bakery concept, results of similarity with the concepts of cakes, rolls, and pies will be obtained - each with a specific numerical value of the association force in this context.

HTML5

Starting with this release, the doctype parameter for all Zen pages is now HTML 5 by default. This is true for browsers that support HTML5 and CSS 3. This behavior can be overridden by% OnDetermineCSSLevel () callback or by changing the corresponding global node. Simultaneously with this change in IE9 and higher, the native SVG renderer is now used.

Rendering Arabic texts in reports

Starting with this version, Caché officially supports Arabic output to Zen Reports using Apache FOP.

Regular expressions

In 2012.2, an alternative to working with templates was proposed - regular expressions. Using regular expressions not only determines the presence of a complex pattern, but also its location and the results of a successful search. As a result, it becomes possible to perform more complex text data manipulations with a smaller amount of code. More details .

Node.js support

Added support for Node.js. Node.js is a platform built on Google Chrome JavaScript. Uses an event-based, non-blocking I / O model to create web applications with intensive work with data. Node.js is integrated with Caché and provides direct access to globals. More details .

Optimization of local array processing

Starting with version 2012.2, InterSystems offers an easy way to dynamically control the memory allocated for processes at runtime, as well as the ability to allocate large amounts of memory at system startup. In this case, you can use all the available physical memory of the server. This will increase performance due to the fact that large local arrays required for calculations can be completely in memory.
Although this improvement is most needed for 64-bit systems, however, in 32-bit systems, it will also be possible to manage the memory of a separate process. When allocating memory for Caché, it is important to ensure that a lack of memory does not lead to a deterioration in the operation of other important operating system processes, which may indirectly affect the performance of Caché.

.NET eXtreme

This release includes support for .NET for the Globals API, which gives direct access to globals from .NET. The Globals API allows .NET and Caché to work with inter-process shared memory in case you need to implement the fastest data access possible. More details .

Java eXTreme over TCP

Starting with this version, it is possible to use Java eXTreme via TCP in Caché (previously it was possible to work only through shared memory). Java eXTreme is a lightweight object Java technology for accessing stored data in Caché. The new version also uses the Globals API, but the ability to use TCP removes the restriction on the mandatory use of shared memory, and therefore the need to run the java-process on the same server with Caché. More details .

.NET 4.0 components for Object Provider and .NET Gateway

This release provides compiled .NET 4.0 versions of Object Provider for Caché and .NET Gateway. Although previous releases were compatible with .NET 4.0, it is now possible to use only .NET 4.0 components in their applications.

Default long strings

Starting with version 2012.2, long line support is now enabled by default for new installations. When upgrading previous releases, the previous value remains unchanged.

Performance and Scalability

ECP Rollback

Starting with this release, rollback operations initiated by the process on the ECP application server will be transferred to the database server asynchronously. This approach allows you to process other requests in parallel. Previously, a rollback operation was processed synchronously: The Database Server first processed the rollback before continuing to process other requests from a specific ECP Application Server. This innovation prevents long pauses in the work for the applications of a specific application server ECP, in case if any one application of this server initiated a long rollback.

Using AES hardware encryption

Many hardware manufacturers now include support for encryption directly in the chips. Caché can use this feature (with hardware support) for Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) computing. This can significantly improve encryption performance by using specific chip instruction sets.
It will be possible to start using this functionality with 64-bit Intel processors, in particular with the Intel Xeon Processor X5680 (Westmere). On these systems, Caché directly uses hardware instructions for AES encryption. The supported operating systems for this option are: Microsoft x86-64, Red Hat Enterprise Linux for x86-64, SuSE Linux Enterprise Server for x86-64.

Reliability, availability, administration, monitoring

Simplify Disaster Recovery Failover and Failback

In previous releases of the Caché Database Mirroring, an asynchronous mirror was offered as a disaster proof solution. In this release, the procedure for switching to an asynchronous mirror node in the event of a catastrophe (or for testing) is simplified by introducing a special type of asynchronous mirror - Disaster Recovery, which is designed to work out exactly these situations. Also for this mode, switching to the main mirror when it is restored is simplified.

UNIX Configuration Installations

Starting from this release, UNIX installations can be performed with startup configuration parameters from the command line, as is already used in Windows distributions.
New options can be used in the cinstall_silent script, in which you can define the name of the installation, the directory and the selected components for installing the DBMS.

Security

Public key infrastructure

Increasing security requirements in many industries simultaneously increases the need to use a public key infrastructure, such as encrypting and signing documents and using X.509 certificates. At the same time, the generation, secure storage and distribution of X.509 keys and certificates is a complex and time-consuming process.
In this release, InterSystems users can automate the process of generating certificates by assigning an authorized certificate authority. Clients will only need to request certificates from an authorized certificate authority and automatically retrieve them for use.

The full version of the Release Notes in English is here .