Hi Developers!

Recently we launched InterSystems Package Manager - ZPM. And one of the intentions of the ZPM is to let you package your solution and submit into the ZPM registry to make its deployment as simple as "install your-package" command.

To do that you need to introduce module.xml file into your repository which describes what is your InterSystems IRIS package consists of.

This article describes different parts of module.xml and will help you to craft your own.

I will start from samples-objectscript package, which installs into IRIS the Sample ObjectScript application and could be installed with:

zpm: USER>install samples-objectscript

It is probably the simplest package ever and here is the module.xml which describes the package:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<Export generator="Cache" version="25">
  <Document name="samples-objectscript.ZPM">
    <Module>
      <Name>samples-objectscript</Name>
      <Version>1.0.0</Version>
      <Packaging>module</Packaging>
      <SourcesRoot>src</SourcesRoot>
      <Resource Name="ObjectScript.PKG"/>
    </Module>
  </Document>
</Export>

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Foreword

InterSystems IRIS versions 2022.2 and newer feature the ability to authenticate to a REST API using JSON web tokens (JWTs). This feature enhances security by limiting where and how often passwords transfer over the network in addition to setting an expiration time on access.

The goal of this article is to serve as a tutorial on how to implement a mock REST API using InterSystems IRIS and lock access to it behind JWTs.

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Hi Community,

Did you know about OWASP and Top Ten Web Application security risks to your Web API or Web Apps?

OWASP is a community foundation created to help us to improve the security of web apps/web APIs. OWASP do the web apps more secure through its community-led open source software projects, hundreds of chapters worldwide, tens of thousands of members, and by hosting local and global conferences.

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Hi Community!

I think everyone keeps the source code of the project in the repository nowadays: Github, GitLab, bitbucket, etc. Same for InterSystems IRIS projects check any on Open Exchange.

What do we do every time when start or continue working with a certain repository with InterSystems Data Platform?

We need a local InterSystems IRIS machine, have the environment for the project set up and the source code imported.

So every developer performs the following:

  1. Check out the code from repo
  2. Install/Run local IRIS installation
  3. Create a new namespace/database for a project
  4. Import the code into this new namespace
  5. Setup all the rest environment
  6. Start/continue coding the project

If you dockerize your repository this steps line could be shortened to this 3 steps:

  1. Check out the code from repo
  2. Run docker-compose build
  3. Start/continue coding the project

Profit - no any hands-on for 3-4-5 steps which could take minutes and bring head ache sometime.

You can dockerize (almost) any your InterSystems repo with a few following steps. Let’s go!

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Introduction

InterSystems has recently completed a performance and scalability benchmark of IRIS for Health 2020.1, focusing on HL7 version 2 interoperability. This article describes the observed throughput for various workloads, and also provides general configuration and sizing guidelines for systems where IRIS for Health is used as an interoperability engine for HL7v2 messaging.

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Article
· Mar 31, 2023 3m read
Using JSON in IRIS

Saw the other day an article with the usage of the %ZEN package when working with JSON and decided to write an article describing a more modern approach. At some recent point, there was a big switch from using %ZEN.Auxiliary.* to dedicated JSON classes. This allowed to work with JSONs more organically.

Thus, at this point there are basically 3 main classes to work with JSON:

  • %Library.DynamicObject - provides a simple and efficient way to encapsulate and work with standard JSON documents. Also, there is a possibility instead of writing the usual code for creating an instance of a class like
set obj = ##class(%Library.DynamicObject).%New()

it is possible to use the following syntax

set obj = {}
  • %Library.DynamicArray - provides a simple yet efficient way to encapsulate and work with standard JSON arrays. With arrays you can use the same approach as with objects, meaning that yu can either create an instance of the class
set array = ##class(%DynamicArray).%New()

or you can do it by using brackets []

set array = []
  • %JSON.Adaptor is a means for mapping ObjectScript objects (registered, serial or persistent) to JSON text or dynamic entities.
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Article
· Aug 2, 2022 8m read
Data models in InterSystems IRIS

Before we start talking about databases and different data models that exist, first we'd better talk about what a database is and how to use it.

A database is an organized collection of data stored and accessed electronically. It is used to store and retrieve structured, semi-structured, or raw data which is often related to a theme or activity.

At the heart of every database lies at least one model used to describe its data. And depending on the model it is based on, a database may have slightly different characteristics and store different types of data.

To write, retrieve, modify, sort, transform or print the information from the database, a software called Database Management System (DBMS) is used.

The size, capacity, and performance of databases and their respective DBMS have increased by several orders of magnitude. It has been made possible by technological advances in various areas, such as processors, computer memory, computer storage, and computer networks. In general, the development of database technology can be divided into four generations based on the data models or structure: navigational, relational, object and post-relational.

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Article
· Apr 9, 2019 3m read
IRIS/Ensemble as an ETL

IRIS and Ensemble are designed to act as an ESB/EAI. This mean they are build to process lots of small messages.

But some times, in real life we have to use them as ETL. The down side is not that they can't do so, but it can take a long time to process millions of row at once.

To improve performance, I have created a new SQLOutboundAdaptor who only works with JDBC.

BatchSqlOutboundAdapter

Extend EnsLib.SQL.OutboundAdapter to add batch batch and fetch support on JDBC connection.

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Here is an ObjectScript snippet which lets to create database, namespace and a web application for InterSystems IRIS:

    set currentNS = $namespace

    zn "%SYS"

    write "Create DB ...",!
    set dbName="testDB"
    set dbProperties("Directory") = "/InterSystems/IRIS/mgr/testDB"
    set status=##Class(Config.Databases).Create(dbName,.dbProperties)
    write:'status $system.Status.DisplayError(status)
    write "DB """_dbName_""" was created!",!!


    write "Create namespace ...",!
    set nsName="testNS"
    //DB for globals
    set nsProperties("Globals") = dbName
    //DB for routines
    set nsProperties("Routines") = dbName
    set status=##Class(Config.Namespaces).Create(nsName,.nsProperties)
    write:'status $system.Status.DisplayError(status)
    write "Namespace """_nsName_""" was created!",!!


    write "Create web application ...",!
    set webName = "/csp/testApplication"
    set webProperties("NameSpace") = nsName
    set webProperties("Enabled") = $$$YES
    set webProperties("IsNameSpaceDefault") = $$$YES
    set webProperties("CSPZENEnabled") = $$$YES
    set webProperties("DeepSeeEnabled") = $$$YES
    set webProperties("AutheEnabled") = $$$AutheCache
    set status = ##class(Security.Applications).Create(webName, .webProperties)
    write:'status $system.Status.DisplayError(status)
    write "Web application """webName""" was created!",!

    zn currentNS

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There's an easy new way to add certificate authority (CA) certificates to your SSL/TLS configurations on InterSystems IRIS 2019.1 (and 2018.1.2) on Windows and Mac. You can ask IRIS to use the operating system's certificate store by entering:

%OSCertificateStore

in the field for "File containing Trusted Certificate Authority X.509 certificate(s)". Here's an image of how to do this in the portal:

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With the release of InterSystems IRIS, we're also making available a nifty bit of software that allows you to get the best out of your InterSystems IRIS cluster when working with Apache Spark for data processing, machine learning and other data-heavy fun. Let's take a closer look at how we're making your life as a Data Scientist easier, as you're probably already facing tough big data challenges already, just from the influx of job offers in your inbox!

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Hello.

The idea of this post is to introduce Frontier: An abstraction layer that allows Rapid REST development.

REQUIREMENTS:

Why?

Have you ever found yourself dealing with repetitive tasks like mounting objects, serializing them and eventually handling multiple errors for multiple cases? Frontier can boost your development by making you focus on what really matters: your application.

Frontier is made to stop you from WRITE'ing by instead forcing your methods to return values.
It's designed to make you code clean, and you'll see the why pretty soon.

This is the Part 1, where you'll learn he basics about how to work with Frontier. That means at the end of this part you should be capable of

creating GET requests without difficulties. Since this also serves as a way to introduce the framework, I'll be calling this part: Core concepts.

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Over the past year or so, my team (Application Services at InterSystems - tasked with building and maintaining many of our internal applications, and providing tools and best practices for other departmental applications) has embarked on a journey toward building Angular/REST-based user interfaces to existing applications originally built using CSP and/or Zen. This has presented an interesting challenge that may be familiar to many of you - building out new REST APIs to existing data models and business logic.

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NB. Please be advised that PKI is not intended to produce certificates for secure production systems. You should make alternate arrangements to create certificates for your productions.
NB. PKI is deprecated as of IRIS 2024.1: documentation and announcement.

In this post, I am going to detail how to set up a mirror using SSL, including generating the certificates and keys via the Public Key Infrastructure built in to InterSystems IRIS Data Platform. I did a similar post in the past for Caché, so feel free to check that out here if you are not running InterSystems IRIS. Much like the original, the goal of this is to take you from new installations to a working mirror with SSL, including a primary, backup, and DR async member, along with a mirrored database. I will not go into security recommendations or restricting access to the files. This is meant to just simply get a mirror up and running. Example screenshots are taken on a 2018.1.1 version of IRIS, so yours may look slightly different.

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Last week, we announced the InterSystems IRIS Data Platform, our new and comprehensive platform for all your data endeavours, whether transactional, analytics or both. We've included many of the features our customers know and loved from Caché and Ensemble, but in this article we'll shed a little more light on one of the new capabilities of the platform: SQL Sharding, a powerful new feature in our scalability story.

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Article
· Jan 18, 2019 2m read
Free IRIS Community Edition in AWS

Good News!! You can use now the Free InterSystems IRIS Community Edition in the AWS Cloud

Hello,

It's very common that people new in InterSystems IRIS want to start to work in a personal project in a full free environment. If you are one of this, Good News!! You can use now the Free InterSystems IRIS Community Edition in the AWS Cloud.

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Pouring The Coffee: Creating and scheduling a task

Don't you wish a fresh, hot cup of coffee could be waiting for you right when you get into the office? Let's automate that!

Cache and IRIS come with a built-in Task Manager, which should have a familiar feel to those used to using the Windows task scheduler or using cron on Linux. Your user account will need access to the %Admin_Task resource to use it, and you can access it in the management portal under System Operation -> Task Manager. When first installed, there are roughly 20 types of task that you can schedule.

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Article
· Feb 25, 2019 4m read
Using Grafana directly from IRIS

There have been some very helpful articles in the community that show how to use Grafana with IRIS (or Cache/Ensemble) by using an intermediate database.

But I wanted to get at IRIS structures directly. In particular, i wanted to access the Cache History monitor data that is accessible by SQL as described here

https://community.intersystems.com/post/apm-using-cach%C3%A9-history-mon...

and didn't want anything between me and the data.

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