InterSystems announces General Availability of InterSystems IRIS, InterSystems IRIS for Health, & InterSystems Studio 2023.3

The 2023.3 releases of InterSystems IRIS Data Platform, InterSystems IRIS for Health, and InterSystems IRIS Studio are now Generally Available (GA).

RELEASE HIGHLIGHTS

2023.3 is a Continuous Delivery (CD) release. Many updates and enhancements have been added in this release:

Enhancing Cloud and Operations

Journal Archiving: Starting with this release, system administrators can now configure an archive location for completed journal files. When configured, after a journal file switch, the completed journal file will first be compressed (using the Journal Compression feature) and then automatically moved to this archive location, which can be on a lower-cost storage tier such as HDD drives or cloud storage such as Amazon S3. Archived journal files can then be automatically deleted from the local journal directory, reducing the overall footprint on the high-performance storage tier used for writing journal files and lowering the Total Cost of Ownership for InterSystems IRIS deployments. 

Enhancing Analytics and AI

Time Series Forecasting support in IntegratedML: Support for Time Series models in IntegratedML, introduced with InterSystems IRIS 2023.2 as an experimental feature, is now fully supported for production use. 

Enhancing the Developer Experience

Business Rule Editor Enhancements: The Business Rule Editor is continuously being improved and starting with this release supports searching for arbitrary text and matches are being highlighted across the rule sets. In the case a rule calls multiple transformations the order is configurable now. In addition, the user experience has been improved based on user feedback e.g., all editing modals have been widened to make it less likely text is cut off. 

Enhancing Speed, Scale and Security

Faster globals size estimates: This release introduces a new algorithm for fast estimation of the total size of a global, that uses stochastic sampling rather than a comprehensive block scan. The new algorithm is able to provide accurate estimates (within 5% of actual size) in seconds for globals measuring hundreds of GBs. It is available as a new option in the existing ^%GSIZE , %GlobalEdit  and %GlobalQuery  interfaces.

Faster ObjectScript runtime: When using public variables in an ObjectScript routine, the InterSystems IRIS kernel needs them to be registered in an in-memory symbol table that is specific to the routine. Starting with InterSystems IRIS 2023.3, this symbol table is built lazily, only adding public variables upon their first reference. This means only variables actually used in the routine are added to the symbol table, which may significantly reduce the cost of building it. This is an entirely transparent change to internal memory management, but it may yield noticeable performance gains for ObjectScript code that makes significant use of public variables.

Enhancing Interoperability and FHIR 

Support for base FHIR R5: This release supports the base implementation of FHIR R5 (Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources Release 5). FHIR R5 represents a significant leap forward in healthcare data interoperability and standardization, our commitment to delivering the latest advancements to our users. FHIR R5 marks a crucial milestone in our ongoing efforts to support the most up-to-date healthcare data standards.

What is in R5?

• Fifty-five new resources, however, most are not immediately relevant to many use cases.
• Several resources promoted to maturity level 5 – essentially the highest before being locked down for backwards compatibility. FHIR is closer to becoming very stable.
• New property changes and data types, which help builders solve problems.

FHIR Profile Validation: FHIR Profile Validation is designed to enhance the accuracy and reliability of your healthcare data by ensuring compliance with Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) profiles. This feature will empower healthcare professionals, developers, and organizations to streamline data exchange, improve interoperability, and maintain data quality within the FHIR ecosystem.

DOCUMENTATION

Details on all the highlighted features are available through these links below:

• InterSystems IRIS 2023.3 documentation, release notes and deprecated & discontinued technologies and features.
• InterSystems IRIS for Health 2023.3 documentation, release notes and deprecated & discontinued technologies and features.

In addition, check out this link for upgrade information related to this release.

HOW TO GET THE SOFTWARE

As usual, Continuous Delivery (CD) releases come with classic installation packages for all supported platforms, as well as container images in Docker container format. For a complete list, refer to the Supported Platforms page.

Classic installation packages

Installation packages are available from the WRC's Continuous Delivery Releases page. Additionally, kits can also be found in the Evaluation Services website. InterSystems IRIS Studio is still available in the release, and you can get it from the WRC's Components distribution page.  

Containers

Container images for both Enterprise and Community Editions of InterSystems IRIS and IRIS for Health and all corresponding components are available from the InterSystems Container Registry web interface.

✅ Build number for this release is: 2023.3.0.254.0. If you're in the ICR, containers are tagged as "latest-cd".