Migrating from Oracle, MSSQL, or other purely relational database systems to a multimodel InterSystems IRIS is a strategic decision that requires careful planning and execution. While this transition offers significant benefits, including enhanced performance, scalability, and support for modern architectures, it also comes with challenges. In this article I will highlight some of the considerations connected to coding to ensure a successful migration. I will leave everything connected to an actual migration of structures and data outside the scope of this article.

First, when you're considering migrating to a different database system, you need to understand your business logic, whether it's on the side of the application (application server) or the database server. Basically, where do you have your SQL statements that you will need to potentially rewrite? 

Hi All,

First I want give a Shout Out to @Theo Stolker  and @Rupert.Young. Because they helped me with the solution.

 When you're using the EnsLib.SQL.Snapshot as a Property in the Response Message to return Snapshot data (,e.g.: from Business Operation to Business Process,) the Snapshot data won't be cleaned with the Purge messages task/service.

Class ResponseMessage Extends Ens.Response

{

    Property SnapshotProp As EnsLib.SQL.Snapshot;

}

The data will be stuck in the global: ^Ens.AppData. You can find it with this query in System>Globals:  ^Ens.AppData("EnsLib.SQL.

Are you familiar with SQL databases, but not familiar with IRIS?  Then read on...

About a year ago I joined InterSystems, and that is how IRIS got on my radar.  I've been using databases for over 40 years—much of that time for database vendors—and assumed IRIS would be largely the same as the other databases I knew.

Introduction

Hello! In this article, I will be discussing database degrade, a type of data integrity issue one can face when using IRIS. First, I will be going over a review of the structure of IRIS databases. I'll then discuss how database degrade can manifest and common causes of degrade issues. I'll then conclude with general tips we give our customers about how to prevent or prepare for database degrade issues.

IRIS Database Structure

What exactly is a database? An IRIS database is a single file that consists of a fundamental unit called the "block".

This is the second part of an article pair where I walk you through:

• Part I - Intro and Quick Tour (the previous article)
  • What is it?
  • Spinning up an InterSystems IRIS Cloud Document deployment
  • Taking a quick tour of the service via the service UI
• Part II - Sample (Dockerized) Java App (this article)
  • Grabbing the connection details and TLS certificate
  • Reviewing a simple Java sample that creates a collection, inserts documents, and queries them
  • Setting up and running the Java (Dockerized) end‑to‑end sample

As mentioned the goal is to give you a smooth “first run” experience.

If you already know Java (or .Net) and perhaps also have used other document databases (or looking for one), but you are new to the InterSystems world, this post should help you.

InterSystems IRIS Cloud Document is a fully managed document database that lets you store JSON documents and query them with familiar SQL syntax, delivered as a cloud service managed by InterSystems.

In this article pair I’ll walk you through:

• Part I - Intro and Quick Tour (this article)
  • What is it?
  • Spinning up an InterSystems IRIS Cloud Document deployment
  • Taking a quick tour of the service via the service UI
• Part II - Sample (Dockerized) Java App (the next article)
  • Grabbing the connection details and TLS certificate
  • Reviewing a simple Java sample that creates a collection, inserts documents, and queries them
  • Setting up and running the Java (Dockerized) end‑to‑end sample

The goal is to give you a smooth “first run” experience.

The Power of Indexing in Database Tables

When working with databases, most developers understand the concept of an index and why it's used: to speed up data retrieval. But the real impact of indexing often becomes clear only when you compare scenarios with and without it.

Do you Know what Happens Without an Index?
Imagine a table with three columns: Name, Age, and MobileNumber.

Now, consider this query:

If the Age column does not have an index, the database engine will:

• Check if the WHERE condition field has an index.
• If not, it will scan the entire table (a full table scan).

Supply Chain refers to a set of processes and activities performed by the company's business areas and its suppliers and partners (stakeholders), from the acquisition of raw materials, through production, to delivery to the end consumer. It can be better managed using SCM solutions with the orchestration of the InterSystems IRIS:

Vibe the Module, Not the Data

While working with the FHIR to OMOP Service, I've seen good FHIR synthetic data being created using commercial LLM's etc, custom tailored for ConditionOnset with the typical amazement on return, but witnessed some questionable trust first hand on a call.  This approach also falls short generating gigantic payloads so I can go back to my interests on the backend and ensure smooth data transition.

Mirror Your Database Across the Galaxy with Seeding

Hello cpf fans!  This distraction I used the "seed" capability in IRIS to provision an entire IrisCluster mirror, 4 maps wide with compute starting from an IRIS.DAT in a galaxy far far away.  This is pretty powerful if you have had a great deal of success with a solution running on a monolithic implementation and want it to scale to the outer rim with Kubernetes and the InterSystems Kubernetes Operator.  Even though my midichlorian count is admittely low, I have seen some hardcore CACHE hackers shovel around DATS, compact and shrink and update their ZROUTINES, so this same approach could also be helpful shrinking and securing your containerized workload too.  If you squint and feel all living things around you,  you can see a glimpse of in place (logical) mirroring in the future as a function of the operator and a migration path to a fully operational mirrored Death Star as the workload matures.

Introducing IRIS DocDB Explorer: A Sleek UI for Managing JSON Documents in InterSystems IRIS

IRIS offers a dedicated feature for storing and retrieving JSON documents using DocDB, without requiring a predefined schema.

Developers often need a quick and intuitive way  to browse, create, and edit documents without switching between multiple tools or writing repetitive code. To solve this, I created iris-docdb-ui — a CSP-based open-source application that provides a clean, responsive interface for interacting with DocDB effortlessly.

Hi Team, 

Can I please check if anyone has built a simple web interface for maintaining custom SQL lookup class.  

We have a simple persistent class in HealthShare which is used for storing Pathology test codes. Test codes in this lookup class is used for message filtering and applying additional logic when processing pathology results/orders. 

We want to make this class available to external users from pathology (not the usual management portal users) to maintain so that they can add/edit/delete test codes as required.

Hi everyone! 👋
I’m excited to share the project I’ve submitted to the current InterSystems .Net, Java, Python, and JavaScript Contest — it’s called IRIStool and Data Manager, and you can find it on the InterSystems Open Exchange and on my GitHub page.

It's about an example for the External Languages Contest 2025

You get almost any information about your databases in IRIS using 
the System Management Portal. After passing several levels, you often
get a wide list of items, but the interesting ones are hard to find.

At the moment, we have 10 HealthShare instance servers (5 x mirrored pairs), where we implement an External Backup approach, using the freeze/thaw commands against whichever server of the pair is the backup mirror member, to complete a VM level backup. These backups are stored to a disk within our control, to purge as required. This approach allows us to deliver a zero downtime backup approach.

Finishing my previous example for multiple IRIS instances, I tried
to compose a local single instance version.  The step from the external
Python app to a version using embedded Python seemed to be obvious.
This was a wrong assumption, as some Python libraries just refused installation
into my local Windows-based environment.

I am working on a tool that configures an instance to use a common default routine database across all custom Namespaces. For instances that already have distinct default routine databases for their Namespaces, this would involve a step of merging over all code from the current default routine databases to the new "super" routine database. This should be done in such a way that only merges contents in the default routine database (not mapped databases) and is able to detect/exclude contents that already exist in the target database.

These are the strategic plans of my example for the External Languages Contest 2025

I would like to learn about the binary and document reference FHIR Resources. For the PDF data stored in those resources. But I think Binary Resource for the Document PDF stored in FHIR, so this resource is best for it. So sometimes Large PDF 15-page (~35md) data converts into base64 then data length is ~50 lac charecters length of base64binary data. this data store in Binary Resource on data field https://www.hl7.org/fhir/R4/binary.html follow this url this resource used in my case. so it's support the 50 lac charecter of the base64 length? This resource can be Insert into IRIS?

We currently have Business Operation that we built to use the EnsLib.SQL.OutboundAdapter so we can make Microsoft SQL Server Stored Procedure calls. The BO is attached to a Java Gateway Service.

Some of our MS SQL Databases have moved from being OnPrem to Azure Cloud. We have started seeing where we are receiving errors on the BO saying that we cannot connect to the Azure Database, but we never receive a Disconnect from the Azure Database.

Hi, I'm wondering what are the diferences between a method or classmethod with the language set at tsql and a querry writen in sql.
If anyone know if there is some difference and what they are, I would be glad to learn. 😊

We’re building out a data lake in IRIS 2025.1 that aggregates data across multiple business systems and departments. I’m trying to establish best practices for schema design and separation.

Right now, I’m thinking of using a separate schema for each distinct system of record feeding into the data lake - for example, one schema per upstream source system, rather than splitting based on function (e.g. staging, raw, curated). The idea is that this would make it easier to manage source ownership, auditing, and pipeline logic, especially when multiple domains are contributing data.

Hello my friends,

I have a problem with logi report, 

in my store procedure,  I create code like this?

$ListToString(%DLIST(DISTINCT (ARCIM_Desc)),'<br/>') as "ARCIM_Desc", -> this is the problem

$ListToString(%DLIST(DISTINCT (MRDIA_ICDCode_DR)),'<br/>') as "MRDIA_ICDCode_DR", -> it's works fine

as you see there's a <br/> in the display of the report

I have no idea about this, maybe someone can help me fix this problem ?

Thank You

Best Regards,

Steven Henry

Hello my friends,

I have a problem with Objectscript, why the value of address become like this ?

everything works fine except the Address,

this is my code, do I need something to make this into real address ? should I put something in my code ? 

 set paper=obj.PAADMPAPMIDR.PAPMIPAPERDR

            if '$isobject(paper) continue

            set Address=paper.PAPERStName

thank you for your help

Best Regards,

Steven Henry

I have notified that on several servers the IRISTEMP database is reported as only a few GB in size while on the disk where it's located, the IRIS.DAT file is much bigger (eg: 3GB reported in Portal (including free space) while file on the disk file is 121GB). The last modification date of IRIS.DAT is recent so I'm not looking into a location no more in use.

Is there an explanation for that difference in size ? 

I know temporary databases are special in a way they are not always stored on the disk, here is what InterSystems says about it :

Changes to temporary globals are not written to disk.