DBMS release InterSystems Caché 2017.1

Hello! Just yesterday, the release of the next version of the Caché DBMS under the number 2017.1 took place. We are in a hurry to share a list of changes in the first version of 2017. As always, first we publish a link to the full list of changes (in English).

Support for FIPS 140-2 cryptographic standard for Data-at-Rest encryption in Caché

In this release of Caché, you can configure the DBMS to work with the ratified FIPS 140-2 library (available only for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 64-bit). For more information, see the separate documentation article: " FIPS 140–2 Compliance for Caché Database Encryption "

Improvements to OAuth 2.0 and OpenID Connect Support

Support for OAuth 2.0 and OpenID Connect has been updated to include the following features:

• Support for OpenID Connect Discovery 1.0 in accordance with the standard . During client configuration, the Management Portal now provides a new discovery option that can be used instead of manually filling in information about the authorization server. The % SYS.OAuth2.Registration class now provides the Discover () method.
• Support for dynamic client registration (OpenID Connect Dynamic Client Registration) in accordance with the draft standard . During client configuration, the Management Portal provides a new registration option that can be used instead of manually filling in client information on the authorization server. The % SYS.OAuth2.Registration class now provides the RegisterClient () method.
• Support for JSON Web Key (JWK) and JSON Web Key Sets (JWKS) in accordance with the proposed standard for encryption, decryption, signature and signature verification JWTs (JSON Web Tokens).
• Because JWKS provides the means to represent a public key / private key pair, it is no longer necessary to use a certificate / private key pair for these purposes. The ability to use a pair of certificate / private key is present for backward compatibility.
• Key rotation (when using JWKS). The OAuth 2.0 configuration pages in the Management Portal provide key rotation options.
• The Management Portal provides the ability to revoke tokens of specific users. This feature is provided for convenience and complements the existing client API.

All functions supported in 2016.2 will work from 2017.1. For example, you may have a client and an authorization server running on different versions of Caché. However, new features are not supported by members running version 2016.2.

In release 2017.1, changes were made to the configuration of the OAuth 2.0 and OpenID Connect classes. Caché will automatically update your saved configurations.

DeepSee Enhancements

This release includes the following DeepSee enhancements:

• New control widgets for dashboards.
• Improved export of DeepSee components.
• New feature "DayOfWeek".
• New plugin "CreateTable".
• Improvements in setting default values ​​for filters.
• Improvements in setting complex values ​​for filters.
• Drilldown expressions now use the expression builder (expressionBuilder).
• SQL-based listings now support dynamic sorting.

Mirroring Enhancements

This release includes the following mirroring enhancements:

• Significant increase in performance in backup and asynchronous mirror links when recording updates (received from the main mirror link) to a local copy of mirror logs. Demonstrated a 10-fold increase in throughput in the transfer of magazines, which allowed to expand the scalability of mirror systems. As a result of these changes, systems that use the backup mirror link to recover from a failure will also receive improved application performance and responsiveness of the main link.
• The process for raising the status of asynchronous Disaster Recovery links has been improved. When increasing the status of a link in an emergency scenario, before it becomes the main link, the link polls all the other links in the mirror to get the most relevant (at the time of the accident) log data from them. This ensures that disaster recovery includes all available data and other “surviving” asynchronous links can join the new main link. In addition, an intermediate step is supported, which allows manual validation on the link whose status has been upgraded before allowing it to become the main one.
• ccontrol list and ccontrol qlist now include mirror link type and status.

Improved DocBook Search

DocBook Search has received improvements that allow you to quickly search for information. Now in the search results in the first place the most used documents are displayed. The search page has received new options that allow you to narrow your search. The following filters are available:

• Search topics with all or any of the specified words. In previous issues, the search has always been done for all the words.
• Full-text search or full match search with or without case sensitivity. In previous releases, only full-text search was used, which removed special characters, and then searched for all words with a common root. A full match search saves special characters and searches only for the specified words. For example, if you search for the word “^ global”, then a full-text search will find all occurrences of the word “global”, and a search for full match will find only occurrences of “^ global”.
• Now you can search for specific product documentation.
• Search for a specific documentation book.
• Search by tags. Allows you to search by words associated with terms such as DeepSee, Zen, HL and BPL.

Feature tracker

In 2017.1, we present a safe and reliable approach for periodically collecting information about the functions used by Caché, in order to maintain the integrity of relations with our customers.

Feature Tracker is controlled by the Caché task. By default, the task is paused and Feature Tracker is inactive, but can be easily started by the user. Feature Tracker helps us prioritize which Caché features to improve in the first place based on what features our customers use.

Feature Tracker collects information about the attributes of a Caché instance (product type, version, license, platform, etc.) and usage of technologies including ECP, mirroring, encryption, and SQL. Feature Tracker does not collect license usage information, database attributes, applications, errors, authentication, client data, or configurations.

Feature Tracker sends weekly collected data (as an XML file) to a Caché instance on the InterSystems side using SSL. You can view the latest data collected to make sure that the process of collecting information is transparent. If, for some reason, Feature Tracker cannot transmit information, the transfer completes silently without any effect on the operation of the Caché instance.

More information about Feature Tracker can be found in the Caché documentation in Feature Tracker Collects Usage Statistics .

Attention: During the test period (Field Test) Feature Tracker is active by default.

iKnow REST API and other improvements

This release introduces the REST API for accessing information in iKnow domains directly from RESTful client applications. Most typical queries are accessible through a simple, consistent interface, where individual queries can be customized to provide detailed or simple results, depending on the requirements of the application.

The iKnow REST API provides documentation using the Swagger specification, which is the basis for the OpenAPI specification.

Attention:

One way to view the iKnow REST API documentation is to use the Swagger UI, either through a web browser at petstore.swagger.io , or using the Swagger UI toolkit.

Enter one of the following URLs into the Swagger UI form and then click the Explore button.
For the Caché instance used for development with minimal security settings, enter: http: // localhost: port-number / api / iknow / v1 / user / swagger

For a Caché instance with password access, enter:
http: // localhost: port-number / api / iknow / v1 / user / swagger? CacheUserName = user-name & CachePassword = password

In addition, this release contains significant improvements to the iKnow Knowledge Portal demo interface (an interface for working with the contents of your iKnow domain), as well as some extensions to the iKnow Architect interface for managing domain definitions.

Atelier

Atelier is the new Eclipse-based Caché IDE, available separately from Caché, and has its own release cycle. Consequently, the new features described in the Atelier documentation are introduced in each new release of Atelier. Atelier IDE brings the power and popularity of Eclipse to the development of InterSystems Caché DBMS. It allows you to develop Caché applications using the modern file IDE and is responsible for downloading applications to the Caché server, where they can be launched or debugged.

Future development will focus on Atelier. The studio will remain available for installation, and developers will be able to continue to use it for development. Nevertheless, the Studio will be regarded as a product on support and will not receive new functionality. Some minor Studio errors may not be resolved, depending on the resources required to fix them and the severity of the problem.

Atelier is available as a standalone application in addition to Caché or Ensemble. You can choose to use a separate Atelier installer or plug-in for your existing Eclipse installation. Atelier uses the Eclipse auto-update mechanism to help users get the latest versions in a timely manner. You can download Atelier on a separate download page .

Other changes

Also in this release are many small improvements and fixes. If you are upgrading from an existing installation, please see the detailed list of changes to the Upgrade Checklist section .

• The OpenSSL library has been updated to version v1.0.2h.
• Thai time format support expanded and improved.
• Lightweight Statistics Provides SQL Query Performance Information
• "SQL Read Verified" provides access to unacknowledged changes like "Read Uncommitted", but also cross-checks compliance with query conditions.
• Improved work queue manager.
• Improvements to the XSLT Gateway.
• Improvements in the JDBC driver, including a faster and more reliable pre-parser.
• Support for .NET 4.5 in .NET Gateway, Caché eXtreme and ADO.NET.