Every server, every namespace, in one tree

Most sites do not have one InterSystems server. They have a development box, an integration box, two production members and something nobody has touched since 2014 — each with a handful of namespaces, each on a different version. In a generic JDBC client that becomes a flat list of thirty connection entries with names like prod2-hs-ens, one per namespace, and a driver JAR problem every time a new server joins the estate. The Server Navigator exists to make that list manageable again.

One tree for every server, namespace and object

The Navigator is a tree for browsing and managing database objects, and it is the spine of the whole application. From it you reach tables, views, globals, classes, indexes, constraints, stored procedures, functions, cached queries and database diagrams. Objects in a namespace are introspected and presented in folders grouped by schema, so a namespace with four hundred tables across twelve schemas still reads as twelve folders rather than four hundred rows.

Connections can be organised into groups, which is the part that matters once you pass ten of them. Group by environment, by customer, by data centre — whatever mirrors how you think about the estate. The interface concept is deliberately close to SQL Server Management Studio, so if you come from a Microsoft background the layout needs no explanation, and if you come from InterSystems the terminology is the one you already use.

Every namespace, without knowing its name

Register a server once and every namespace on it is listed for you. There is no namespace name to remember, no separate JDBC connection to configure per namespace, and nothing to update when a namespace is added on the server. Namespace state is visible in the tree itself:

• Remote namespaces — a namespace whose data lives in a database on another system — are marked with a link icon, so you can see at a glance that you are about to query across a network hop.
• Unavailable namespaces are marked with a red cross. A dismounted database or a namespace you have no privileges for shows up as a state in the tree instead of as an error dialogue three clicks later.

When you test a connection, the result is capped at the first five namespaces. That keeps the confirmation dialogue readable on servers that host dozens of them.

The drivers are already in the box

8 InterSystems JDBC drivers ship inside the application: 7 IRIS versions covering 3.3 to 3.10.5, plus the Caché 2018.1 driver. They are loaded side by side in isolated classloaders, which is what makes it possible to have a 2018 Caché instance and a current IRIS instance open in the same session without the two drivers fighting over class names.

Drivers for other systems are bundled too — Microsoft SQL Server, PostgreSQL, MariaDB, DuckDB, SQLite, H2, Apache Derby, Trino, Microsoft Access, Microsoft Excel and CSV. There is no CLASSPATH to edit, no JAR to hunt down on a vendor site and no version matrix to maintain by hand. For generic JDBC connections the connection dialogue shows worked example URLs for each supported system, and connection details can be copied or sent to a colleague straight from the context menu.

Import the connections that are already on your machine

If Caché or IRIS is installed locally, you do not need to type any of it in. Choose Tools → Import Caché Connections and the locally known server registrations are read and turned into SQL DATA LENS connections. Host, port and the matching driver version are all filled in from the local configuration. The only thing left for you to enter is the password.

Connections that stay out of your way

The Navigator uses its own database connection, independent of any open editor, so browsing the tree never blocks a query and a long-running statement never freezes the tree. Each SQL editor holds exactly one private connection — earlier versions opened a second public connection just to read namespace metadata, which made editors slow to open; that is gone. Stored procedures, which are the slowest folder to enumerate on a large namespace, are loaded asynchronously.

For InterSystems connections the Navigator also surfaces the details that normally require a look at the server: whether the connection uses shared memory, whether the server is local, and the driver and protocol versions actually in use — worth checking before you trust a version number a driver reports about itself.

Where you go from the tree

Every other part of the application is opened from the Navigator: the SQL editor against the namespace you have selected, the Table Viewer for a table, the Global Browser for the storage beneath it, the administration views for the instance, and database diagrams from a folder in the namespace itself. Non-InterSystems systems appear in the same tree and behave the same way — see Beyond IRIS for what that covers.

Setting up the Navigator is the first ten minutes with SQL DATA LENS, and for a local installation it is closer to one. Import your existing connections, group them the way you think about them, and the rest of the tool has somewhere to start from. Download SQL DATA LENS for Windows and register your first server.