The Data Platforms team is very pleased to announce the 2021.2 release of InterSystems IRIS Data Platform, InterSystems IRIS for Health and HealthShare Health Connect, which are now Generally Available (GA) to our customers and partners.

Release Highlights

InterSystems IRIS Data Platform 2021.2 makes it even easier to develop, deploy and manage augmented applications and business processes that bridge data and application silos. It has many new capabilities including:

Enhancements for application and interface developers, including:

• Embedded Python 
• Interoperability Productions in Python
• Updates to Visual Studio Code ObjectScript Extension Pack
• New Business Services and operations added allowing users to set and run SQL query with minimal custom coding

Enhancements for Analytics and AI, including:

• New SQL LOAD command efficiently loads CSV and JDBC source data into tables
• Enhancements to Adaptive Analytics

Enhancements for Cloud and Operations tasks, including:

• New Cloud Connectors make it simple to access and use cloud services within InterSystems IRIS applications
• IKO enhancements improve manageability of Kubernetes resources

Enhancements for database and system administrators, including:

• Online Shard Rebalancing automates distribution of data across nodes without interrupting operations
• Adaptive SQL engine uses fast block sampling and automation to collect advanced table statistics and leverages runtime information for improved query planning
• Storage needs for InterSystems IRIS are reduced with new stream and journal file compression settings
• Support for TLS 1.3 and OpenSSL 1.1.1, using system-provided libraries
• New ^TRACE utility reports detailed process statistics such as cache hits and reads

More details on all these features can be found in the product documentation:

• InterSystems IRIS 2021.2 documentation and release notes
• InterSystems IRIS for Health 2021.2 documentation and release notes
• HealthShare Health Connect 2021.2 documentation and release notes

 How to get the software

InterSystems IRIS 2021.2 is a Continuous Delivery (CD) release, which now comes with classic installation packages for all supported platforms, as well as container images in OCI (Open Container Initiative) a.k.a. Docker container format.  Container images are available for OCI compliant run-time engines for Linux x86-64 and Linux ARM64, as detailed in the Supported Platforms document.

Full installation packages for each product are available from the WRC's product download site for CD releases. Using the "Custom" installation option enables users to pick the options they need, such as InterSystems Studio and IntegratedML, to right-size their installation footprint.

Container images for the Enterprise Edition, Community Edition and all corresponding components are available from the InterSystems Container Registry using the following commands:

docker pull containers.intersystems.com/intersystems/iris:2021.2.0.651.0
docker pull containers.intersystems.com/intersystems/iris-ml:2021.2.0.651.0
docker pull containers.intersystems.com/intersystems/irishealth:2021.2.0.651.0
docker pull containers.intersystems.com/intersystems/irishealth-ml:2021.2.0.651.0

For a full list of the available images, please refer to the ICR documentation.

Alternatively, tarball versions of all container images are available via the WRC's product download site for CD containers.

Our corresponding listings on the main cloud marketplaces will be updated in the next few days.

Sharing your experiences

We are excited to see this version now hitting the GA milestone and eager to hear your experiences with the new software. Please don't hesitate to get in touch through your account team or the Developer Community with any comments on the technology or the use cases you're addressing with it.

For selected new capabilities and products, we've set up Early Access Programs to allow our users to evaluate software before it gets released. Through these focused initiatives, we can learn from our target audience and ensure the new product fulfills their needs when it gets released. Please reach out through your account team or watch the Developer Community if you're interested in participating in any of these.