#Containerization

Last time we launched an IRIS application in the Google Cloud using its GKE service.

And, although creating a cluster manually (or through gcloud) is easy, the modern Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC) approach advises that the description of the Kubernetes cluster should be stored in the repository as code as well. How to write this code is determined by the tool that’s used for IaC.

In the case of Google Cloud, there are several options, among them Deployment Manager and Terraform. Opinions are divided as to which is better: if you want to learn more, read this Reddit thread Opinions on Terraform vs. Deployment Manager? and the Medium article Comparing GCP Deployment Manager and Terraform. 

Hi Developers!

I stuck with one interesting problem. 

For example, let's use this template repo. If you build this container A using docker-compose and then run the container it exposes REST-API  which is available on:

localhost:52773/person/all

The question is how to make this REST-API accessible from another docker container B running on the same machine? E.g. with IRIS 2019.4 Community from this repo?

The problem is that for the second container localhost it's something which belongs to container B.

I think I need to set up a network between containers somehow. E.g. using docker-compose. But is there any simpler way?

Some of you on the Developer Community have probably interacted with @Luca Ravazzolo if you are interested in cloud and container topics... If so, you'll enjoy Episode 2 of our new podcast — we chatted with Luca about Kubernetes and the InterSystems Kubernetes Operator. He does a great job of explaining the technology and its benefits here!

Hi all,
I'm having issues with mounting custom database on top of IRISHealth 2019.1 docker container. Data gets mounted only in Read-only mode. This means read operations are successful but I couldn't make the image  with databases mounted  in Read/write, both modes. Is anyone having similar issue?

Hi Community,

The new video from Global Summit 2019 is already on InterSystems Developers YouTube:

⏯ Basics and Benefits of Cloud Deployment

Hi Community,

Please welcome the new Global Summit 2019 video on InterSystems Developers YouTube Channel:

⏯ InterSystems IRIS Containers for Developers

Hi Community,

The new video from Global Summit 2019 is already on InterSystems Developers YouTube:

⏯ The Value of Developing with Containers

I want to add ports 9100 and 9101 in addition to 52773. I read on docker container documentation that this is not possible on a already ran image. Currently it starts the google cloud IRIS health container automatically without me able to specify the additional ports. How can I add ports to Google cloud IRIS Health container?

¡Hi everybody!

As you likely are aware, the new version of InterSystems IRIS for Health (I4H) it's already available in Docker Hub. It's the Community version and is free and fully functional. There have been comments about it in other articles and posts,... so today I won't add anything about features. Here I want to explore "the mistery about the disappearance, or better, absence of our persistent data when we run a container with the durable option"  (I didn't find a terrifying font to emphasize the thriller... post editor is not terrific for styling ) .

Recently I was fielding some questions that someone had about some bugs that crop up on Docker for Mac, and it reminded me of what Shakespeare wrote in his famous tragedy about large-scale software orchestration, Kubelet: the Prince of Benchmark.

When running Docker on Mac or Windows, some problems crop up occasionally, because Docker for Mac and Docker for Windows are both using some clever and mostly-hidden tricks to be able to run at all.  Containers are, fundamentally, a Linux technology, cobbled together from a handful of features native to the Linux platform. However, they're so popular

Hi Community,

Please join the upcoming InterSystems Israel Meetup in Herzelia which will be held on November 21st, 2019! 

It will take place in the Spaces Herzliya Oxygen Ltd from 9:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.

The event will be focused on the InterSystems IRIS: it will be divided into IRIS for Healthcare and IRIS Data Platform. A joint lunch will be also included.

Please check the draft of the agenda below:

Hello!

Checking to see if anyone has experience with deploying their Docker containers on a platform like OpenShift (or vanilla Kubernetes)?

If you have, do you have any guidance or lessons-learned?  Is this even something feasible with a HealthShare/Ensemble instance?

Hi Developers!

Those who use Dockerfile to work with InterSystems IRIS often need to execute several lines of ObjectScript.  For me, this was a game of "escaping this and that" every time just to shoot a few commands on ObjectScript to IRIS. Ideally, I'd prefer to code ObjectScript without any quotes and escaping.

Recently I found a nice "hack" on how this could be improved to exactly this state. I got this from @Dmitry Maslennikov's repo and this lets you use Objectscript in a way as you would type it in IRIS terminal.

Here is what you have in dockerfile:

///
COPY irissession.sh /
SHELL ["/irissession.sh"]
RUN \
  do $SYSTEM.OBJ.Load("Installer.cls", "ck") \
  set sc = ##class(App.Installer).setup()
# bringing the standard shell back
SHELL ["/bin/bash", "-c"]
CMD [ "-l", "/usr/irissys/mgr/messages.log" ]
///

Hi Developers,

The new video from Global Summit 2019 is already on InterSystems Developers YouTube:

⏯ Introduction to Kubernetes

When deploying IRIS in a container, what are recommendations for permitting users terminal access? There is docker exec -it, but that does not work from a user's workstation where - in the old deployment model - they would connect to the server over ssh using Putty and open a terminal session from there.

Hi Community,

As you may know, we successfully held InterSystems Developers Meetup in Boston at Global Summit 2019. And now it's time to find out which solutions development on InterSystems IRIS have been discussed! 

Please welcome the Meetup video recording on InterSystems Developers YouTube Channel:

⏯ InterSystems Developers Meetup - Global Summit 2019

Hi, 

If you like to play and test with mirroring, now you can do it very easily with dockers and these simple mirror scripts.

• The docker-compose.yml will create 2 containers with the preferred version. 
• The installer.sh script will start the ISCAgent, load the Installer.cls class into Iris and call it. 
• The interesting part is inside the Installer.cls class, you will find some methods to create a mirror,  join and create databases in mirror.  The scripts are quite simple and you can borrow them to create your own mirrors.

Note that this script is just valid for 2019.3 and newer, if yo

One of my colleagues at InterSystems encountered an unexpected issue when running InterSystems IRIS on a Macintosh in a container using Docker for Mac.  I’d like to share what we found, so you might avoid running into similar issues.

The Problem

The task at hand was running a Java application with XEP to do a large data load into IRIS.  When running the data load, the write daemon hung soon after starting the job, with messages like these in messages.log:

05/21/19-14:57:50:625 (757) 2 Process terminated abnormally (pid 973, jobid 0x00050016) (was a global updater)

05/21/19-14:58:52:990 (743) 2 CP

I am happy to announce that InterSystems API Manager is now generally available. InterSystems API Manager (IAM) is a new feature of the InterSystems IRIS Data Platform™, enabling you to monitor, control and govern traffic to and from web-based APIs within your IT infrastructure.

Hi Everyone,

Are you ready yet? Have you packed all you'll need for the summit? And don't forget the needed power-socket adapters if you come from outside the US! 

Have you signed up for the Container Bootcamp on Sunday? Or one of the various Experience Labs, the many informative sessions and one of the symposia on Wednesday afternoon?

Again, there is a mobile app for attendees that should help you keep it all under control and even allow you to book time with InterSystems personnel for a one-on-one deep-dive on whatever you need.

I just wanted to highlight some of the Containers, Kubernet

Hi Developers!

InterSystems Package Manager (ZPM) is a great thing, but it is even better if you don't need to install it but can use immediately.

There are several ways how to do this and here is one approach of having IRIS container with ZPM built with dockerfile.

I've prepared a repository which has a few lines in dockerfile which perform the download and install the latest version of ZPM. 

Add these lines to your standard dockerfile for IRIS community edition and you will have ZPM installed and ready to use.

To download the latest ZPM client:

Hi Community:

Interested in getting hands-on with our technology? Come to Global Summit, where you'll find five experiences to choose from in the Experience Lab:

• The Machine Learning Toolkit on OpenExchange
• The Next Evolution of APIs
• Working with the FHIR Resource Repository
• Using AI Services to Build Intelligent Apps
• Containerizing Apps with InterSystems IRIS

If you've never tried these out, Experiences are guided exercises in which you engage with our technology. Each Experience starts with a brief introduction outlining a particular task. Then you complete the task on your ow

Hi Community!

Enjoy watching  the new video on InterSystems Developers YouTube, recorded by @Thomas Carroll, Cloud Market Technical Specialist at InterSystems.

How Are Containers Different From Virtual Machines?

Hi Developers!

Suppose I have a project where I want to build an IRIS container with two different dockerfiles depending on goals.  How can I make it?

The issue is that docker-compose is looking for the file with name 'dockerfile'

Are there any #IF constrations in a dockerfile syntax? 

Commenting works but sometimes it's more than one line.

Hi Community!

You're very welcome to watch a new video on InterSystems Developers YouTube, recorded by @Stefan Wittmann, InterSystems Product Manager:

InterSystems API Manager Introduction

Preview releases are now available for the 2019.3 version of InterSystems IRIS and IRIS for Health!

Container images are available via the WRC's preview download site.

The version number for these releases is 2019.3.0.302.0

Public announcements will be made shortly, with separate announcements for each product.

InterSystems IRIS Data Platform 2019.3 is a CD (continuous delivery) release of InterSystems IRIS.  It has many new capabilities including:

Continuous Delivery Releases of InterSystems IRIS

InterSystems API Manager

Node-level Architecture for Sharding and SQL Support

Infrastructure and Cloud Deployment Improvements

Port Authority for Monitoring Port Usage in Interoperability Productions

X12 Element Validation in Interoperability Productions

New Framework for Coding Business Hosts in Java

Java and .NET Gateway Reentrancy

Hi Community,

If you're interested in containers, take a look at what we got planned for Global Summit, September 22-25, Boston Marriott Copley Place. Register now to take advantage of our early bird pricing.

SESSIONS ON CONTAINERS

Introduction to Kubernetes 
Basics and Benefits of Cloud Deployment
InterSystems IRIS Containers for Developers 
InterSystems IRIS KubernetesOperator
InterSystems IRIS Cloud Roadmap 
A Skeptic’s Guide to Containers
Diving into InterSystems Cloud Technology 
Leveraging Containers for DevOps 
Resilient Deployments in the Cloud 
The Value of Developing with Containers
Auto

Now that the InterSystems IRIS Data Platform Community Edition is available on Docker Hub (https://hub.docker.com/_/intersystems-iris-data-platform), it seems like a great time to try InterSystems IRIS in a container. For some time already, the community edition has been available in the cloud, for example on AWS (https://community.intersystems.com/post/free-iris-community-edition-aws), but maybe it would be nice to try it locally as well. Fellow Windows users are no doubt used to eye rolling, being told “YMMV”, etc., whenever they mention using Docker for Windows. Sometimes we are even told t

The last time that I created a playground for experimenting with machine learning using Apache Spark and an InterSystems data platform,  see Machine Learning with Spark and Caché, I installed and configured everything directly on my laptop: Caché, Python, Apache Spark, Java, some Hadoop libraries, to name a few. It required some effort, but eventually it worked. Paradise. But, I worried. Would I ever be able to reproduce all those steps? Maybe. Would it be possible for a random Windows or Java update to wreck the whole thing in an instant? Almost certainly.

Now, thanks to the increasingly wid

Hi Community!

We're pleased to announce that that InterSystems IRIS Community Edition is available on the Docker Store! InterSystems IRIS Community Edition is the no-cost developer edition designed to lower the barriers to entry to get started with IRIS. Now that it is listed on the Docker Store, running an IRIS Community instance is as easy as -

For more on running IRIS in containers check out our Documentation or one of the many Community posts on the topic!