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 referred to them as “Silent Corruption” and “Undetected Mutation”

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.

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

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.)

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

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:

LOADDATAFROMFILE'D:\dev\openflights_dataset\data\countries.csv'INTOdc_data_flights.countries(id,code,name,continent,wikipedia_link,keywords)VALUES(id,code,name,continent,wikipedia_link,keywords)USING{"from":{"file":{"header":true,"columnseparator":","}}}

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.

If we look at the Docker Dashboard, we’ll see that there is a group named openflights_demo:

Apache Zeppelin is available via

http://localhost:8080

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

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

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:

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?

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:

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...