InterSystems Developer Community is a community of 25,083 amazing developers
We're a place where InterSystems IRIS programmers learn and share, stay up-to-date, grow together and have fun!
Learn more

Introduction

Businesses often use in-memory databases or key-value stores (caching layers) when applications require extremely high performance. However, in-memory databases incur a high total cost of ownership and have hard scalability limits, incurring reliability problems and restart delays when memory limits are exceeded. In-memory key-value stores share these limitations and introduce architectural complexity and network latency as well.

This article explains why InterSystems IRIS™ data platform is a superior alternative to in-memory databases and key-value stores for highperformance SQL and NoSQL applications.

Taking Performance and Efficiency to the Next Level

InterSystems IRIS is the only persistent database that can match or beat the performance of in-memory databases and caching layers for concurrent data ingestion and analytics processing. It can process incoming transactions, persist the data to disk, and index it for analytics in under one microsecond on commercially available hardware without introducing network latency.

The superior ingest performance of InterSystems IRIS results in part from its multi-dimensional data engine, which allows efficient and compact storage in a rich data structure. Using an efficient, multi-dimensional data model with sparse storage techniques instead of two-dimensional tables, random data access and updates are accomplished with very high performance, fewer resources and less disk capacity. It also provides in-memory, in-process APIs in addition to traditional TCP/IP access APIs to optimize ingest performance.

10 0
5 107

Hello!!!

Data migration often sounds like a simple "move data from A to B task" until you actually do it. In reality, it is a complex process that blends planning, validation, testing, and technical precision.

Over several projects where I handled data migration into a HIS which runs on IRIS (TrakCare), I realized that success comes from a mix of discipline and automation.

Here are a few points which I want to highlight.

1. Start with a Defined Data Format.

Before you even open your first file, make sure everyone, especially data providers, clearly understands the exact data format you expect. Defining templates early avoids unnecessary bank-and-forth and rework later.

While Excel or CSV formats are common, I personally feel using a tab-delimited text file (.txt) for data upload is best. It's lightweight, consistent, and avoids issues with commas inside text fields. 

PatID   DOB Gender  AdmDate
10001   2000-01-02  M   2025-10-01
10002   1998-01-05  F   2025-10-05
10005   1980-08-23  M   2025-10-15

Make sure that the date formats given in the file is correct and constant throughout the file because all these files are usually converted from an Excel file and an Basic excel user might make mistakes while giving you the date formats wrong. Wrong date formats can irritate you while converting into horolog.

4 8
1 103

Hi community,

I have a service that uses EnsLib.RecordMap.Service.FTPService to capture files in an FTP directory.

Instead of uploading them all at once, I would need to do so one at a time.

I have a class that extends this class because it preprocesses, saves everything in the RecordMap class, and then processes all the records at once.

When I invoke the BP, it does so through the method set tStatus = ..SendRequest(message, 1).

I've set the SynchronousSend flag to 1, but it continues processing all the files at once.

0 1
0 37

Not sure where to ask for some helpful hints about IRIS 2019.1 in 2025, but here goes.

I'm trying to create a new Java gateway to run some Java code through ObjectScript, but I keep getting an error saying "Java executable not found in the given directory":

This is my Object Gateway Server definition:

0 2
0 49

Hey Community!

We’re updating the Developer Community search engine till the end of the year to make it faster and more accurate (we hope 😉).

Only one in three consumers install firmware updates right away - BetaNews

During this period, you may experience occasional slowness or brief interruptions in search performance. If you notice anything unusual or run into issues, please let us know in the comments below - your feedback helps us ensure everything runs smoothly.

0 1
0 40

Hey Community!

We're happy to share a new video from our InterSystems Developers YouTube:

⏯ Advanced SQL join table cardinality estimates @ Ready 2025

https://www.youtube.com/embed/8FE9v7xkEj8
[This is an embedded link, but you cannot view embedded content directly on the site because you have declined the cookies necessary to access it. To view embedded content, you would need to accept all cookies in your Cookies Settings]

0 0
0 27

Overview

This web interface is designed to facilitate the management of Data Lookup Tables via a user-friendly web page. It is particularly useful when your lookup table values are large, dynamic, and frequently changing. By granting end-users controlled access to this web interface (read, write, and delete permissions limited to this page), they can efficiently manage lookup table data according to their needs.

The data managed through this interface can be seamlessly utilized in HealthConnect rules or data transformations, eliminating the need for constant manual monitoring and management of the lookup tables and thereby saving significant time.

Note:
If the standard Data Lookup Table does not meet your mapping requirements, you can create a custom table and adapt this web interface along with its supporting class with minimal modifications. Sample class code is available upon request.

Open Exchange app
2 0
1 60

Hi Community!

We’re excited to announce a brand-new sweepstakes. This time, the theme is:

💡 Initial Developer Experience 💡

We want to hear your thoughts on how we can make the very first steps with InterSystems technologies smoother, clearer, and more inspiring. Whether it’s documentation, onboarding, setup, or tutorials, your ideas can make a real difference!

5 3
1 209

Target Practice for IrisClusters with KWOK

KWOK, Kubernetes WithOut Kubelet, is a lightweight tool that simulates nodes and pods—without running real workloads—so you can quickly test and scale IrisCluster behavior, scheduling, and zone assignment. For those of you wondering what value is in this without the IRIS workload, you will quickly realize it when you play with your Desk Toys awaiting nodes and pods to come up or get the bill for provisioning expensive disk behind the pvc's for no other reason than just to validate your topology.

Here we will use it to simulate an IrisCluster and target a topology across 4 zones, implementing high availability mirroring across zones, disaster recovery to an alternate zone, and horizontal ephemeral compute (ecp) to a zone of its own. All of this done locally, suitable for repeatable testing, and a valuable validation check mark on the road to production.

0 0
0 33

Hey Community,

Enjoy the new video on InterSystems Developers YouTube:

⏯ The Road to AI in Healthcare @ Ready 2025

https://www.youtube.com/embed/Yqhq2JEWeCo
[This is an embedded link, but you cannot view embedded content directly on the site because you have declined the cookies necessary to access it. To view embedded content, you would need to accept all cookies in your Cookies Settings]

0 0
0 73

Can someone help me understand what type of user error (?) is going on here please?

One one system, I write out a group of $c() values and get the expected results:

USER>for i=250:1:260 { write i," ", $c(i),! }
250 ú
251 û
252 ü
253 ý
254 þ
255 ÿ
256 Ā
257 ā
258 Ă
259 ă
260 Ą

USER>w $zv
IRIS for Windows (x86-64) 2023.1.4 (Build 580U) Fri Apr 19 2024 11:16:07 EDT
USER>

On another system, I get some unexpected results:

2 4
1 90

Hello Community,

When I compile the Sample.User class for the first time, and include an ObjectGenerator method intended to run certain logic during each compilation, it throws a <CLASS DOES NOT EXIST> error. However, recompiling the same class works as expected.

I understand this happens because the class hasn’t been fully compiled yet during the first pass. To overcome this issue, are there any specific callback methods available that can safely be used after the class is fully compiled?

0 2
0 49

In my previous article, Using LIKE with Variables and Patterns in SQL, we explored how the LIKE predicate behaves in different scenarios, from Embedded SQL to Dynamic SQL, and what happens to performance when wildcards and variables come into play. That piece was about getting comfortable writing a working LIKE query. But writing SQL that works is only the starting point. To build applications that are reliable, scalable, and secure, you need to understand the best practices that underpin all SQL, including queries that use LIKE.

This article takes the next step. We’ll look at a few key points to help strengthen your SQL code, avoid common pitfalls, and make sure your SELECT statements run not just correctly, but also efficiently and safely. I'll use SELECT statements with LIKE predicate as an example along the way, showing how these broader principles directly affect your queries and their results.

*This is what Gemini came up with for this article, kinda cute.

10 0
1 138

Hi all,

Let's do some more work about the testing data generation and export the result by REST API.😁

Here, I would like to reuse the datagen.restservice class which built in the pervious article Writing a REST api service for exporting the generated patient data in .csv

This time, we are planning to generate a FHIR bundle include multiple resources for testing the FHIR repository.

3 6
0 106