InterSystems IRIS 2019.1 release

In mid-March, a new version of the InterSystems IRIS 2019.1 data platform was released.

We present to your attention a list of changes in Russian. A complete list of changes and Upgrade Checklist in English can be found at the link .

Improvements in InterSystems Cloud Manager

InterSystems Cloud Manager is a utility for easy deployment of InterSystems IRIS installations in the cloud. In release 2019.1, ICM has the following features:

• Support for availability zones. Creation of installations occupying several zones within one region. Read more - “ Deploying Across Multiple Zones ”.
• Asynchronous mirror support. Inclusion in the installation configuration of asynchronous mirror nodes. Read more - “ Mirrored Configuration Requirements ”.
• Installing InterSystems IRIS without the use of containers, directly from the installation package. Read more - “ Containerless Deployment ”.
• Support for service discovery. Read more - Sharing ICM Deployments .

Client Languages

The release includes new modules for working with InterSystems IRIS:

• IRIS Native API for .NET - low-level access to globals from .NET applications. Read more - “ First Look: InterSystems IRIS Native API for .NET ”.
• Relational access from Python - support for using pyodbc. Read more - “ Support for pyodbc Python ODBC bridge ”.
• Dynamic Java Gateway - call Java programs from InterSystems IRIS without creating proxy classes. Read more - “ Using Dynamic Object Gateways ”.
• Using shared memory when working with Java Gateway.
• Compatible with Hibernate 5.2, 5.3. Read more - Hibernate Support .
• New Java utility for bulk data download. Read more - “ The Simple Data Transfer Utility ”.

Improved scalability and distributed cluster management

InterSystems Distributed Cluster IRIS separates data and cache among several servers, providing flexible, inexpensive scalability for querying and adding data. This release includes the following improvements:

• Support for more scripts for SQL. Nodes in the cluster can now be added at any time, regardless of the database schema and keys used. After adding a node, data can be rebuilt (offline). Read more - “ Rebalance Sharded Data Across Additional Shard Data Servers ”.
• A new page has appeared in the Management Portal with an overview and configuration of the cluster.
• New API to create a consistent cluster backup. Read more - " Coordinated Backup and Restore of Sharded Clusters ".
• A new Java utility for bulk data loading is also optimized for working with a cluster.

SQL enhancements

This release includes significant improvements in SQL performance and ease of use.

• Auto-parallelization of matching queries. Read more - “ System-Wide Parallel Query Processing ”.
• New TUNE TABLE command to customize the table through the SQL interface. Read more - “ TUNE TABLE ”.
• SQL Shell enhancements, in which you can now view schemas, tables, and views defined or available in the current scope. Read more - “ Using the SQL Shell Interface ”.
• Viewing the query plan now shows the subplans of the composite plans when parallelizing and querying the cluster.
• You can now add options to the query text to override the SQL system settings for this query. Read more - “ Comment Options ”.
• In each release, InterSystems includes various invisible improvements to SQL. In 2019.1, especially many such improvements were added to the query optimizer and code generator. Together with the automatic parallelization of queries by users, this should significantly improve the performance of applications using InterSystems IRIS SQL.

Analyst Improvements

• The ability to set partial dates in Business Intelligence. For example, specify a date for which only the year or year and month is known. Read more - “ Partial Dates ”.
• New design% SQLRESTRICT for filtering data through SQL inside an MDX query.

Improvements in integration capabilities

In this release, many improvements that simplify the configuration and search for problems in products:

• Search and view all the paths that a message can go through in products. Read more - “ Viewing Interface Maps ”.
• Search for places where product components refer to other product components. Read more - “ Finding Interface References ”.
• Testing data transformation (Data transformations). In the test dialog, you can now set values ​​for aux, context, and process objects, as if the conversion was invoked with initialized objects. Read more " Using the Transformation Testing Page ".
• DTL editor. New actions - switch / case . Ability to group actions and add comments to the transformations.
• Now you can send a message to the rule and see the result of the execution without running the message on all products. Read more - " Testing Routing Rules ".
• Ability to download messages from the Message Viewer to the local computer. Read more - “ Exporting Messages ”.
• Ability to download log events to a local computer. Read more - “ Introduction to the Event Log Page ”.
• In the rule editor, you can now add comments to the rules and open and edit transformations that are used in the edited rule.
• The Queue Wait Alert setting now specifies the time after which for a message, a queued item or an active message generates an alert. Previously, this timeout applies only to messages that are in the product item queue. Read more - “ Queue Wait Alert ”.
• Restricting access to the “System default settings”. Administrators can configure users to edit, view, or delete default settings. Read more - " Security for System Default Settings ".
• The ability to export products to a local computer. Read more - “ Exporting a Production ”.
• It is possible to deploy products from a local computer. Read more - " Deploying a Production on a Target System ".
• Expanded navigation through the product settings page. Links were added to the bookmarks on the product settings page to quickly open the corresponding items in a separate window. On the Queue tab, clicking on the message number opens the trace. On the Messages tab, clicking on the session number opens the trace. On the Processes tab, clicking on the message number opens a trace, and on the process number, a window with process details.
• New options in the Add Business Item Wizard. Now users can automatically assign system default values ​​if the fields are left blank and set the packet prefix for generating routing rules. Read more - “ Wizard Options ”.

System performance and features

• Significant improvements in scalability and performance, in particular for large systems with non-uniformly distributed memory access (NUMA). These improvements include changes in scalability when collecting statistics and managing global buffers, improving performance in displaying globals at the index level (subscript-level mapping), and other optimizations to avoid bypassing pointer blocks. To make these improvements possible, changes were made to the system and memory statistics described in the checklist of this release . These improvements increase the amount of memory allocated for global buffer metadata by 64 bytes for each buffer on Intel systems and 128 bytes for IBM Power. For example, for a buffer of 8-kilobyte blocks, the growth will be 0.75% for Intel systems. These improvements also led to slight changes in the display of statistics in utilities and in the Management Portal.
• The Key Management Interoperability Protocol (KMIP). Starting with this release, InterSystems IRIS can be a client of an industrial key management server. KMIP, the OASIS standard, provides the power of centralized key management. You can use KMIP server keys to encrypt both the database and individual items. KMIP server keys are available in the same way as keys stored in files, for example to encrypt log files. InterSystems IRIS supports copying keys from a KMIP server to local files to create local backups. Read more - “ Managing Keys with the Key Management Interoperability Protocol (KMIP) ”
• New DataMove utility for transferring data from one database to another, simultaneously with changing the global display settings. Read more - “ Using DataMove with InterSystems IRIS ”.
• Support for strings longer than 3'641'144 in JSON objects.
• Support for connecting IRIS Studio with Caché and Ensemble.
• Support for Microsoft Integrated Windows Authentication (SPNEGO) protocol for HTTP connections. Now% Net.HttpRequest can use Windows HTTP 1.1 authentication to connect to a secure server. Users provide access credentials, or% Net.HttpRequest will attempt to use the current context. Supported authentication schemes are Negotiate (Kerberos & NTLM), NTLM and Basic. Read more - “ Providing Authentication ”.
• Improved logging and asynchronous I / O performance.

For users with support, the 2019.1 release is available for download in the Online Distributions section of the wrc.intersystems.com website.

Anyone can try the new version by installing the container with Community Edition, which is available at dockerhub.com.