New in InterSystems IRIS for Health 2023.3

Time Series Forecasting Support in IntegratedML

Support for time series models in IntegratedML, introduced with InterSystems IRIS 2023.2 as an experimental feature, is now fully supported for production use.

Journal Archiving

Starting with this release, system administrators can now configure an archive location for completed journal files. When configured, after a journal file switch, the completed journal file will first be compressed (using the Journal Compression feature) and then automatically moved to this archive location, which can be on a lower-cost storage tier, such as HDD drives, or cloud storage, such as Amazon S3. Archived journal files can then be automatically deleted from the local journal directory, reducing the overall footprint on the high-performance storage tier used for writing journal files and lowering the total cost of ownership for InterSystems IRIS deployments.

Faster Global Size Estimates

This release introduces a new algorithm for fast estimation of the total size of a global that uses stochastic sampling rather than a block scan. The new algorithm provides accurate estimates (within five percent of the actual size) in seconds for globals that take up hundreds of gigabytes of space. It is available as an option in the ^%GSIZE, %GlobalEdit, and %GlobalQuery interfaces.

Faster ObjectScript Runtime

When using public variables in an ObjectScript routine, the InterSystems IRIS kernel needs them to be registered in an in-memory symbol table that is specific to the routine. Starting with InterSystems IRIS 2023.3, this symbol table is built lazily, only adding public variables upon their first reference. This means only variables actually used in the routine are added to the symbol table, which may significantly reduce the cost of building it. This is an entirely transparent change to internal memory management, but it may yield noticeable performance gains for ObjectScript code that makes significant use of public variables.

TLS 1.3 Support Update for Windows (OpenSSL 3.1.1)

With this version, the Windows kit now installs the OpenSSL 3.1.1 library.

OpenSSL 3.0 for AIX

InterSystems IRIS for Health now supports OpenSSL 3.0 on AIX 7.2 and 7.3 via the aixopenssl30 kit. This kit has, as prerequisites, the latest Tech Level for either AIX 7.2 and 7.3.

CentOS

InterSystems no longer supports InterSystems IRIS for Health on CentOS. InterSystems encourages developers who had been using CentOS to switch Red Hat’s free developer program.

VxFS

InterSystems no longer list VxFS as a supported filesystem. InterSystems recommends that SUSE customers using VxFS migrate to XFS or one of the other supported filesystems.

Support for base FHIR R5

This release supports the base implementation of FHIR R5 (Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources Release 5). FHIR R5 represents a significant leap forward in healthcare data interoperability and standardization and InterSystems’s commitment to delivering the latest advancements to users. FHIR R5 marks a crucial milestone in InterSystems’s ongoing efforts to support the most up-to-date healthcare data standards.

What is in FHIR R5?

• 55 new resources, though most are not immediately relevant to many use cases.

• Several resources promoted to maturity level 5, the highest before being locked down for backwards compatibility; these promotions demonstrate how FHIR is becoming very stable.

• New property changes and data types, which help builders solve problems.

Integration with the FHIR Validator

FHIR Profile Validation is being introduced in this release, designed to enhance the accuracy and reliability of your healthcare data by ensuring compliance with Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) profiles. This feature empowers healthcare professionals, developers, and organizations to streamline data exchange, improve interoperability, and maintain data quality within the FHIR ecosystem.

Change to Automatic Freezing of SQL Query Plans

Before this release, InterSystems IRIS would automatically freeze query plans upon upgrading to a new major version, in order to ensure existing plans and performance were maintained. This meant administrators had to manually unfreeze plans in order to benefit from IRIS SQL enhancements in the new release that would lead to a better plan. Starting with InterSystems IRIS 2023.3, when Adaptive Mode is enabled, query plans will no longer be frozen automatically, but invalidated upon upgrade so they get re-planned upon their first invocation after upgrading. For more details, see the corresponding documentation.

General Enhancements to InterSystems SQL

This release introduces a number of general enhancements to IRIS SQL:

• Various performance improvements when querying tables using columnar storage, including operators such as IN and JOIN, various functions, and general data access patterns

• Various performance improvements for query statements involving date/time functions

• Several enhancements to the experimental Foreign Tables capability introduced in 2023.1

• Expanded support for Adaptive Parallel Execution to additional query types, increasing throughput for large queries

• The Statement Index now also tracks DDL statements, in addition to DML and query statements