This post provides useful links and an overview of best practice configuration for low latency storage IO by creating LVM Physical Extent (PE) stripes for database disks on InterSystems Data Platforms; InterSystems IRIS, Caché, and Ensemble.

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Hi Developers!

Recently we released the updated version 0.1.3 of ObjectScript Package Manager (ZPM) which comes with the support of simplified ObjectScript sources folder structure.

What 'simplified' does mean?

Before 0.1.3 ZPM expected the following structure:

/src

---/cls  - for ObjectScript classes

---/cls/package_name/class_name.cls

---/cls/package_name/class_name2.cls

---/mac - or Mac ObjectScript routines

---/mac/package_name/mac_routine.mac

---/mac/package_name/mac_routine2.mac

---/inc - for ObjectScript macro include files.

---/inc/package_name/include_file.inc

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Purpose

Most CloudFormation articles are Linux-based (no wonder), but there seems to be a demand for automation for Windows as well. Based on this original article by Anton, I implemented an example of deploying a mirror cluster to Windows servers using CloudFormation.I also added a simple walk through.
The complete source code can be found here.

Update: 2021 March 1 I added a way to connect to Windows shell by public key authentication via a bastion host as a one-liner.

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Article
· Mar 3, 2021 4m read
Access to IRIS from Rust

What do you think If I will say you, that very soon you will be able to connect to IRIS from the application written in Rust.

What is Rust

Rust is a multi-paradigm programming language designed for performance and safety, especially safe concurrency. Rust is syntactically similar to C++, but can guarantee memory safety by using a borrow checker to validate references. Rust achieves memory safety without garbage collection, and reference counting is optional. (c) Wikipedia

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Hi developers!

Often we need to deploy some data along with code pieces of the application.

And for InterSystems IRIS developers the question could sound: "How can I deploy the data I have in globals?"

InterSystems IRIS Globals Model QuickStart | InterSystems

Here I want to suggest to you one of the approaches - deploying global data using the ZPM package manager.

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InterSystems supports use of the InterSystems IRIS Docker images it provides on Linux only. Rather than executing containers as native processes, as on Linux platforms, Docker for Windows creates a Linux VM running under Hyper-V, the Windows virtualizer, to host containers. These additional layers add complexity that prevents InterSystems from supporting Docker for Windows at this time.

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Hi Developers!

As discussed in previous parts of Package Manager stories to turn your IRIS application into a deployable package you just need to introduce the module.xml file into the root folder of the repository and describe all the resources.

I’m pleased to introduce you to a new project template on Open Exchange which contains examples of how to make different types of resources of your InterSystems IRIS application a part of the ObjectScript package and so make the deployable ObjectSctipt package.

Let's see how you can describe your application resources using this template project as an example.

See the details below.

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Article
· May 15, 2020 3m read
Debugging in HealthShare

Hi, if you develop production with HealthShare, you may have noticed there is a nice tracing feature available - HS.Util.Trace.Operations. This feature allows visually tracing debug information, in structured way. It complements good old logging macros like $$$LOGINFO, $$$TRACE and alike.

I use this feature a lot. However, it has limited functionality, it works nice with classes that extend XML Adapter, streams or data types, but it doesn't work well with arbitrary objects that do no extend from XML Adapter.

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Hi Developers!

Another way to start using InterSystems ObjectScript Package Manager is to use prebuilt container images of InterSystems IRIS Community Edition and InterSystems IRIS for Health Community Edition.

We deploy this IRIS images on DockerHub and you can run it with the following command:

docker run --rm -p 52773:52773 --init --name my-iris -d intersystemsdc/iris-community:2019.4.0.383.0-zpm

Launch a terminal with:

docker exec -it my-iris iris session IRIS

And install zpm-module as:

USER>zpm 

zpm: USER>install objectscript-math

[objectscript-math] Reload START

[objectscript-math] Reload SUCCESS

[objectscript-math] Module object refreshed.

[objectscript-math] Validate START

[objectscript-math] Validate SUCCESS

[objectscript-math] Compile START

[objectscript-math] Compile SUCCESS

[objectscript-math] Activate START

[objectscript-math] Configure START

[objectscript-math] Configure SUCCESS

[objectscript-math] Activate SUCCESS

zpm: USER>

And use same commands for InterSystems IRIS for Health using the tag: intersystemsdc/irishealth-community:2019.4.0.383.0-zpm

The images are being published on IRIS Community Edition and IRIS Community Edition for Health repositories of Docker Hub.

We will update tags with every new release of IRIS and ZPM.

Happy coding!

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Hi Developers!

Many of you are looking for samples on how to work with InterSystems IRIS Analytics, formerly known as DeepSee.

There is a Samples BI module with Patients and Holefoods examples which is available on Github with source code. The installation steps are clear but take time.

Recently we added the option to run IRIS Community Edition containers with ObjectScript Package Manager (ZPM) on board. This simplifies the installation to the "run-one-command" step for the modules submitted to ZPM Community Registry. And thus we can benefit the Samples BI installation with ZPM.

And here is how you can run it on your laptop. Let's go!

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Hi developers!

I just want to share with you the knowledge aka experience which could save you a few hours someday.

If you are building REST API with IRIS which contains more than 1 level of "/", e.g. '/patients/all' don't forget to add parameter 'recurse=1' into your deployment script in %Installer, otherwise all the second and higher entries won't work. And all the entries of level=1 will work.

/patients

- will work, but

/patients/all

- won't.

Here is an example of CSPApplicatoin section which fix the issue and which you may want to use in your %Installer class:

    <CSPApplication Url="${CSPAPP}"
      Recurse="1"
      Directory="${CSPAPPDIR}"
      Grant="${RESOURCE},%SQL"
      AuthenticationMethods="96"
      />

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In this series of articles, I'd like to present and discuss several possible approaches toward software development with InterSystems technologies and GitLab. I will cover such topics as:

  • Git 101
  • Git flow (development process)
  • GitLab installation
  • GitLab Workflow
  • Continuous Delivery
  • GitLab installation and configuration
  • GitLab CI/CD

In the previous article, we covered Git basics, why a high-level understanding of Git concepts is important for modern software development, and how Git can be used to develop software. Still, our focus was on the implementation part of software development, but this part presents:

  • GitLab Workflow - a complete software life cycle process - from idea to user feedback
  • Continuous Delivery - software engineering approach in which teams produce software in short cycles, ensuring that the software can be reliably released at any time. It aims at building, testing, and releasing software faster and more frequently.

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The following post outlines an architectural design of intermediate complexity for DeepSee. As in the previous example, this implementation includes separate databases for storing the DeepSee cache, DeepSee implementation and settings. This post introduces two new databases: the first to store the globals needed for synchronization, the second to store fact tables and indices.

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Everybody has a testing environment.

Some people are lucky enough to have a totally separate environment to run production in.

-- Unknown

.

In this series of articles, I'd like to present and discuss several possible approaches toward software development with InterSystems technologies and GitLab. I will cover such topics as:

  • Git 101
  • Git flow (development process)
  • GitLab installation
  • GitLab WorkFlow
  • GitLab CI/CD
  • CI/CD with containers

This first part deals with the cornerstone of modern software development - Git version control system and various Git flows.

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The following post outlines a more flexible architectural design for DeepSee. As in the previous example, this implementation includes separate databases for storing the DeepSee cache, DeepSee implementation and settings, and synchronization globals. This example introduces one new databases to store the DeepSee indices. We will redefine the global mappings so that the DeepSee indices are not mapped together with the fact and dimension tables.

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This is a FYI for anyone who has experienced the following error after upgrading an existing instance to any product based on Caché 2017.2.2. In our case, the products are HealthShare HealthConnect for Redhat x64 and for Windows x86-64 but I believe it would be a common problem for any InterSystems product on any platform, if based on Caché 2017.2.2. After upgrading our development instance from 2016.2.2 to 2017.2.2, we experienced the following errors when attempting to start a pre-existing Java Object Gateway that was defined prior to the upgrade:

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Often InterSystems technology architect team is asked about recommended storage arrays or storage technologies. To provide this information to a wider audience as reference, a new series is started to provide some of the results we have encountered with various storage technologies. As a general recommendation, all-flash storage is highly recommended with all InterSystems products to provide the lowest latency and predictable IOPS capabilities.

The first in the series was the most recently tested Netapp AFF A300 storage array. This is middle-tier type storage array with several higher models above it. This specific A300 model is capable of supporting a minimal configuration of only a few drives to hundreds of drives per HA pair, and also capable of being clustered with multiple controller pairs for tens of PB's of disk capacity and hundreds of thousands of IOPS or higher.

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Configuring an Ensemble production can be a challenging task involving a thorough understanding of the system and production functionality and a detailed understanding towards each configuration item. After successfully configured an Ensemble production, you might need to set up an identical production on the mirror environment, or deploy the production on a development system to a live system, or send a copy for diagnostic/debug purposes. Other times you might have spent some time designing a BPL/DTL and some other productions can use the same logic.

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Container Images

In this second post on containers fundamentals, we take a look at what container images are.

What is a container image?

A container image is merely a binary representation of a container.

A running container or simply a container is the runtime state of the related container image.

Please see the first post that explains what a container is.

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Last week saw the launch of the InterSystems IRIS Data Platform in sunny California.

For the engaging eXPerience Labs (XP-Labs) training sessions, my first customer and favourite department (Learning Services), was working hard assisting and supporting us all behind the scene.

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