What is our primary use case?
My main use case for InterSystems IRIS is to create integrations between my company's main product and laboratories.
A specific example of an integration that I developed using InterSystems IRIS involved creating a BO, BP, and a BS to make this integration, mainly using the interface that InterSystems IRIS had. I preferred to use BP code, which involved creating the BP, the Business Process, in code. What I appreciated most about creating these integrations using InterSystems IRIS is that it is very tightly connected to the property part and everything else, although I disliked that we had to use Studio and could not use VS Code because we used a slightly older version of InterSystems IRIS at Shift, where only the newer InterSystems IRIS allowed the use of VS Code with newer technologies.
What is most valuable?
In my opinion, the best features that InterSystems IRIS offers are its very optimized database, which I found amazing, and the observability it provides for checking messages and how the data is being transferred, which I find very interesting.
The observability feature in InterSystems IRIS helped me mainly when we had exceptions or issues impacting production, as it was very easy to trace. For example, we grabbed the message that was transferred and identified where this exception occurred, allowing us to quickly find the problem and see which part of the object was breaking, enabling us to solve it quickly.
I did notice a significant reduction in incident resolution time and an improvement in the team's workflow because of the observability.
What needs improvement?
I believe that backward compatibility would be a very important point for InterSystems IRIS, especially for VS Code, as it is necessary to consider the technologies from before InterSystems IRIS to transition smoothly. This backward compatibility is somewhat lacking, and I also think more support from the community and better documentation are needed, especially in the search part and with examples. There are many examples missing on how to use it. Many times, I opened the documentation and found how the code was written but did not see examples of how to use it, leading us to sometimes resort to other means or developers for knowledge.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using InterSystems IRIS for about a year and a half.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
InterSystems IRIS is stable in daily use.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
In terms of scalability, InterSystems IRIS is quite scalable, but I believe the best scalability relies heavily on the infrastructure.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
I give it a six mainly because there are other solutions in the market that propose the same thing. Although these solutions might not cover everything that InterSystems IRIS does, as InterSystems IRIS is a complete solution, some can achieve similar results. Moreover, the lack of community and documentation about everything InterSystems IRIS can do weighed heavily in my evaluation.
What other advice do I have?
I cannot determine a very positive impact or a beneficial result from InterSystems IRIS, although this observability part is important because we were able to find problems much faster. However, stating something definitive or something very positive that other tools do not already provide is difficult to say.
I advise people considering using InterSystems IRIS to contact an experienced InterSystems IRIS developer to clear their doubts and to join the InterSystems IRIS community, which, although small, still has some people willing to answer questions. I gave this product a rating of six out of ten.
