OK, time to set things straight. Mainly to help but also because Jon is not getting a fair deal.
In all versions (at least V3 and V4), you could back up the program including imported items and the databases. You could only backup to the AC servers so the imported items were not a great choice. The databases were ALWAYS encrypted and backed up to a local drive and THEN backed up via an encrypted path to the AC servers. Given that I, as a solo practitioner, had around 50MBs of data in two years, I didn't have to worry about space or time (the Einstein principle) doing offsite backups. But, I chose not back up the imported items over the net BECAUSE it would take way too long. So, I backed them up locally.
Now with V4, as with V3 in some ways, you have the ability to back up EVERYTHING you need to restore the system.
Let's talk V4 and that is what is pretty much on the table now.
With V4, you can choose three back up paths +/- offsite backup. The backup software automatically backs up your data to a folder in the AC folder called "Backup." so, in effect, you could be backing up your data in five different places. All backups will contain the same things. Your backup will contain the following:
AmazingCharts.mdf
AmazingCharts.ldf
Meds.mdf
Meds.ldf
Codes.mdf
Codes.ldf
Imported Items (If you selected it)
_Data001 (If you selected it -- all images you import into AC)
These six to eight files are the backups and, of course, with these, you can recreate your entire AC. As the userdic.tlx which contains your spellchecker add-ons is not used in the server database (if you aren't using that computer and losing some new words isn't that horrible), it is not backed up.
When you restore, the program will restore to the folder that contains the database path, whether it is the AC folder or just the databases. The restore will restore all of the files you backed up above plus a zip folder containing AmazingCharts.bak, your Imported Items and your _Data001 folder. It will also create an AmazingCharts.bak file which will reside outside of the zip folder. This is made as part of the backup as the original in case of a problem with the backup.
There software programs out there which are designed to back up SQL Databases online (meaning while they are still connected to a SQL Server engine. In the past, one could copy and paste a folder anywhere, but this is asking for trouble with SQL, and there is little doubt that if this were your backup choice, you would run into corruption and loss of data.
As I was saying, there are programs out there that can be costly that will back up SQL Server databases as part of the backup of the server and of just the SQL instances, which are beyond the scope of this discussion.
Jon's Amazing Backup software allows one to back up while the databases are connected insuring you will not have data loss or corruption by essentially stopping services and restarting services (would be my best guess on how).
Now, there seem to be two big questions which continue to come up in this thread. The ability to back up EVERYTHING including imported items, and the ability to do incremental, differential and full backups, full backups being the only option at this point.
To talk about the first, one has to look at the priorities of imported items vs all of your patient data. Sure, losing your imported items would be devastating, but I think losing the three databases would be more so. Also in this equation is the fact that the imported items increase exponentially while your data in AC increases just a little at a time. My "imported items" which I don't use, but I have the same in a different place is 7GB. I would not try to back that up online any day. And for bigger practices, it would be much bigger. My imported items are backed up in about four places locally and not by AC.
Now as to incremental and differential backups (I would never do incremental -- differential is OK -- especially over the net), I can't pretend to know how difficult this is. I know that most commercial software backup programs, even inexpensive ones, have that ability. But, I think it is asking Jon a lot to make a backup program and is not only capable of backing up SQL but also can do incremental and differential. Plus and not to get in trouble with newbies, we are already having issues with everyone's understanding of this backup, much less having to understand SQL and incremental/differential backups.
Personally, I think Jon made it too confusing with having three options for paths along with a backup to the AC folder and then options for backing up Imported Items, etc. Especially, since there was not even a backup program before.
I also think that while Jon has offered a lot, he has created this thread because of offering offsite backup (WITH ONE CLICK) and allowed backups of the Imported Items.
Here is the way I would look at it and would recommend using AC backup. And, THIS IS NOT BERT'S WAY, it is the only way. GIVE UP ON BACKING UP IMPORTED ITEMS OFFSITE. And.....DO NOT THEN CONDEMN THE BACKUP PROGRAM BECAUSE IT WON'T BACK UP EVERYTHING.
Your imported items are huge and, as such, should be backed up locally at 480MB/s to 800MBs instead of 1MB/s. Just back them up with the whole chart somewhere and be done with it. What is the fascination with backing up Imported Items with the databases or offline. Sure, it would be nice, but it just isn't feasible. (On that note, backing up including Imported Items locally along with your other backup of AC is very doable).
To answer a couple of questions above: No matter how you set AC backup, it will restore your system EXCEPT for Imported Items unless you select that. Yes, it does include Imported Items.
Leslie, I still don't know what is going on with your memory thing and may have to remote in to see what is happening.
I should point out that while the AC backup is just icing on the cake to my backups, I have done extensive trial backups and restore on Virtual Machine albeit in WIN7, and it works perfectly. But, again, it should not be your only backup.
Having said all of the above, one thing I am thinking about doing and can then get back to everyone (hell, I probably will just so I can) is using rSync backup. I am not completely sure how to use the rSync protocol with other third party programs, but it is already set up in Backup Assist. Given that Leslie already has V5 of BA, I would highly recommend she at least look into it. There are many offsite storage which would work with it, I haven't checked them all out. Mozy may. I do know that AmazonS3 has many, many options and seems to be extremely inexpensive. I will leave two websites, and even though it looks a bit complicated, it really does give you the best of both worlds on differential and full backups over the Internet.
http://aws.amazon.com/s3/#pricinghttp://www.backupassist.com/SBS/documents/4_Rsync.pdfhttp://www.backupassist.com/rsync/Setting_up_Rsync_Server.pdfhttp://www.backupassist.com/downloads/factsheets/factsheet-internetbackup_web.pdfPlease read and take as is, as I cannot guarantee that everything I am saying is 100% right. It's pretty close, though, lol.
