I'm excited to announce a major update to SQL Data Lens – a powerful database client and metadata explorer – that opens up new, free possibilities for the InterSystems community.

SQL Data Lens is now completely FREE to use with InterSystems IRIS Community Edition!

No more “localhost only” restrictions
No more limits on the number of connections

No license? No problem.
You can now connect to InterSystems IRIS Community Edition—completely license-free—using the fully functional Free Edition of SQL DATA LENS. Explore all the features, no strings attached.

The first part of this article provides all the background information. It also includes links to the DATATYPE_SAMPLE database, which you can use to follow along with the examples.

In that section, we explored an error type ("Access Failure") that is easy to detect, as it immediately triggers a clear error message when attempting to read the data via the database driver.

The errors discussed in this section are more subtle and harder to detect.

I've conducted some tests using different InterSystems IRIS Community Edition container images, which I pulled from https://containers.intersystems.com.

During this process, I noticed some inconsistencies that I’d like to clarify:

• The tag latest-preview pulls: InterSystems IRIS Version 2025.1.0.204
• The tag latest-cd pulls: InterSystems IRIS Version 2024.3.0.217
• The tag 2025.1 pulls: InterSystems IRIS Version 2025.1.0.223

This behavior was a bit confusing to me, especially since latest-preview does not point to the most recent 2025.1 build.

When using standard SQL or the object layer in InterSystems IRIS, metadata consistency is usually maintained through built-in validation and type enforcement. However, legacy systems that bypass these layers—directly accessing globals—can introduce subtle and serious inconsistencies.

Understanding how drivers behave in these edge cases is crucial for diagnosing legacy data issues and ensuring application reliability.
The DATATYPE_SAMPLE database is designed to help analyze error scenarios where column values do not conform to the data types or constraints defined in the metadata.

Hi! I've extended my demo repository, andreas5588/demo-dbs-iris, to make it easy to test the FOREIGN SERVER and FOREIGN TABLE features in IRIS.

To achieve this, I created a namespace called FEDERATION. The idea is as follows:

1. Set up JDBC connections for each namespace.
2. Create a FOREIGN SERVER within the FEDERATION namespace for each connection.
3. Define a FOREIGN TABLE a least for one table based on each foreign server.

The Script:  demo-dbs-iris/src/sql/02_create_foreign_server.sql

IRIS does not support executing SQL statements that combine tables from different namespaces.

Hi everyone,

I’m currently experimenting with the SQL Gateway Connection, CREATE FOREIGN SERVER, and the THROUGH command (IRIS Documentation). To speed up my tests, I’ve combined several DemoDataSets in a Docker container and would like to automate the creation of SQL Gateway Connections using code. 

(By the way, if you’re interested, the Docker container is available here: Demo DBs IRIS.)

To achieve this, I’m using SQL to create a connection by running a command like INSERT INTO %Library.sys_SQLConnection.

Hello everyone,

I hope you're doing well!

I wanted to share that a new JDBC driver version has been added to the iris-driver-distribution repository on GitHub. The filename is intersystems-jdbc-3.10.1.jar.

However, I noticed that the commit message doesn’t provide much information about the IRIS version this driver is associated with. Could anyone clarify if this is a final release? Is it production-ready? Additionally, are there details about the bugs it addresses or the new features it introduces?

Has anyone successfully tested the new THROUGH command in IRIS 2024.2 with a FOREIGN SERVER?https://docs.intersystems.com/iris20242/csp/docbook/Doc.View.cls?KEY=RS…

I have connected from a Docker instance to a VM. I was able to successfully set up the JDBC connection through the UI.

I then configured a foreign server with this connection:

But I am unable to send a SQL 'THROUGH' to the DB. I always get a:

I've get the same message if i try it via Management Portal.
I've also tried this:

and this

Always with the same error.

Hi all! 

How can I get the ODBC drivers for IRIS 2024.1 if I am only using IRIS 2024.1 Community Edition? 
This page gives you the information: "The official location for customers to download the latest released and fully supported InterSystems IRIS driver packages is the WRC download site." My first thought on this is: Why does Intersystems make it so difficult for users to use their database? Why is the ‘official’ driver package hidden behind a login wall? Shouldn't Intersystems be happy if someone wants to work with their database, wants to connect?

Hi! 've installed a fresh IRIS on Windows 10: "InterSystems IRIS Version 2022.2.0.368 xDBC Protocol Version 65"

I've tried to create an older demo database that I've build some days ago... it didn't work anymore :-(

If I execute this SQL:

LOAD DATA FROM FILE 'D:\dev\openflights_dataset\data\countries.csv' 
INTO dc_data_flight

Hi! For the Opendataset contest I've build a docker container app stack that use InterSystems IRIS & Openflights Dataset in a container and second container with Apache Zeppelin. You can found details here: https://github.com/andreas5588/openflights_demo

With that you can query the Opendflights Dataset from Apache Zepplin with zero configuration. The containers are on hub.docker so you can use it very easily.

7) You need the right driver

If you want to execute the LOAD DATA sql command you have to choose the driver from 2021.2! If you select the wrong driver and use the LOAD DATA sql command you get something like

 Error: [SQLCODE: <-1>:<Invalid SQL statement>]
[Location: <Prepare>]
[%msg: < LITERAL ('%qpar') expected, : found^LOAD DATA FROM FILE :%qpar>]

I've forked the jdbc driver repo https://github.com/intersystems-community/iris-driver-distribution and added the driver from InterSystems IRIS Version 2021.2.0.617

You can download the intersystems-jdbc-3.3.0.jar from here: https://github.

The last days I've work with the great new feature: LOAD DATA With this post I would like to share my first experiences with you. The following points do not contain any order or other evaluation. These are only things that I noticed when using the LOAD DATA command. It should also be noted that these points are based on the IRIS Version 2021.2.0.617 which is a preview release. So it may be that my observations do not apply to newer IRIS versions. But maybe they are helpful for others.

1) The file path is on server side

I have done my first tests via JDBC.

Hi all,
I try to build a little project for the dataset contest, you can find it here on github: Openflights dataset
My plan is to use just plain SQL. So I've made a few experiments with the new feature LOAD DATA.

Unfortunately all loads produce errors like:  
 Error: [SQLCODE: <-400>:<Fatal error occurred>]
[Error: <<UNDEFINED>zExecute+83^%sqlcq.OPENFLIGHTS.cls4.1 *%qparsets>]
[Location: <ServerLoop>]

The statements I use looks like this:

This happend with the preview release "IRIS Version 2021.2.0.617". While this error occurs, most rows are written to the database, but some rows are missing.

Dear ladies and gentlemen, in the last month I've improved my Tool Caché Monitor... but first: the name

The name Caché Monitor was chosen to reflect the close integration of the tool with the Caché database. The established name Intersystems Caché will likely be completely replaced by InterSystems IRIS Data Platform in the foreseeable future I think. So a rebranding step became necessary. In order to be less closely tied to a product name in the future, a new name has been chosen to be more neutral: SQL Data Lens

This small tutorial described how to „register“ the ADO.NET Database Provider (Driver) for InterSystems IRIS and InterSystems Caché on a Windows machine.

Before we start: Why need the ADO.NET Database Provider to be registered?

ADO.NET provides factory classes standardize the way programmer will create a provider-specific Connection. This simplifies the way programmers create provider specific instances in a generic data access API. Details about that can be found here: https://docs.microsoft.

I' have done some tests with Caché and Apache Zeppelin. I want to share my experince to use both systems together. I'll try to describe all steps that are required to config Zeppelin to connect to Caché.
 

What is  Apache Zeppelin?

For all who think: What the heck is Apache Zeppelin?, here some details what the project site (http://zeppelin.apache.org) says:

"A web-based notebook that enables interactive data analytics. You can make beautiful data-driven, interactive and collaborative documents with SQL, Scala and more.

Caché Monitor is a database\sql tool primarily for InterSystems Caché but can also connect to MS SQL Server, MS Access and more databases. Within Caché Monitors Server Navigator you see all available Namespaces on your Caché Servers. No need to know the name of the Namespace, no need to configure many many JDBC Connections by hand. Just click on the namespace and see all objects like tables, views, classes and more...

There is a beta build available with some new features: A main new feature in this build is called Query