JetBrains is pushing out its third major update series of the year, which also has some things in store for data handlers.

Database and SQL IDE DataGrip, for instance, has been bumped up to v2021.3, and continues on the trajectory of facilitating version control for databases. Once updated, DBAs will find a new tab called DDL Mapping in the IDE’s data configuration properties. Through it,  they can configure which real data source should be mapped to a virtual, versionable one (DDL). The DDL Mappings context submenu contains Apply to and Update from commands, which along with a new experimental diff window are supposed to help make sure sources stay in sync.  

Starting with DataGrip 2021.3, files and objects marked important can be found in a new Bookmarks tool window, query output no longer includes timestamps by default, and Kerberos can be used for authentication in Oracle and SQL Server.

When importing data from .csv files, DataGrip should automatically recognise the first row as the table header, and detect column types so that data can be sorted by numeric value. Users get to change the target schema in the import dialog if needed and can decide whether imported or copied data is meant to end up in a new or already available table. 

Looking into the development environment’s data editor, the component has learned to display aggregate values for cell ranges, present users with table views for tree nodes, and let them set different filtering and ordering options when opening the same table in different windows. There are also new helpers for filling out filter and sort operations when working with MongoDB collections, switching between introspection levels for Oracle databases, and checking for boolean expressions in WHERE and HAVING clauses to prevent unwanted behaviour.

The 1.3 release of data engineering plugin Big Data Tools is now available as well and puts a large focus on work with Apache Zeppelin notebooks. Since the last update, UI parts relating to Zeppelin underwent a major revision and now include enhancements like custom colour schemes and a synchronisation status indicator in the strip between editor and line marker. The display of paragraphs and outputs has been aligned with what users would see in the Zeppelin web interface, inserting paragraphs has become a bit more straightforward, and users can clone paragraphs via a new action in the editor menu. 

Other than that the BDT developers could correct some problems that prevented users from properly working with Parquet files, made it so that monitoring filters for Hadoop and Spark can be applied without refreshing connections, and improved file storage connection validation. Big Data Tools 1.3 is said to work with 2021 versions of IntelliJ IDEA Ultimate, PyCharm Professional, DataGrip and DataSpell. 

The latest iteration of JetBrains’ new data science IDE meanwhile isn’t completely ready for prime time yet, but interested users can however get their hands on a DataSpell release candidate. The 2021.3 RC fixes some issues with command mode shortcuts and comes with a slightly reworked toolbar for Jupyter notebooks, which features a Run and Select Next action instead of Run to improve usability. The DataSpell team also put some work into remote notebook capabilities, allowing data scientists to connect to Jupyter servers via HTTPS, correctly reload remote files, and rename items.