Home Forums Discussions General Discussion Database and II sizes

I am going to be talking to AC later about the backups. It would be helpful to know what some of the sizes of users' databases when you include the size of your imported items.

For example, my imported items after 11 years is only 61.2 MBs. But, a lot of you have 10, 20, 30 or more GBs. Correct?

Main DB: 3.15 GB
Backup (without II): 605 MB
II: 61.5 GB

Our backup is 15 Gigs (Including II).

Imported items = 14.4 gigs by itself

Bert, do you have your Imports with FAP? Brings up an important point that a lot of people keep files out of AC that also need to be backed up. Before you sign up with AC Backup, check to see if you have files outside of AC.

Exactly. This is why my II is so small. They are imported into a 3rd party program called F.A.P.

You are correct about where your important patient files are.

31 GB database with Imported Items

I forgot to ask what your upload speeds are. If you have a chance, if you could write them. Sorry. No big deal if you can't. I will assume somewhere between 2Mbps and 5Mbps.

Our upload speed is 2.86 Mbps

My total backup ENC file is 9 GB with the II included and the patient pictures.

My backup ENC file is 11.3 GB with everything included. My upload speed is only 1 Mbps. Best I could get at my location

I got an e-mail last week from AC that said I had uploaded over 120 GB over the past 2 months - but the initial upload still hasn't completed. Something is obviously screwed up.

I just got a letter from TDS Telecom advertising 1 Gig speed. Crazy speed. But, of course, they don't have it in my area. Maine really shouldn't even be considered a state, lol.

35 Mbps upload speed.
Bert, I googled but couldn't find out what FAP is and how you use it to keep your II so small. I work for a Family Practice solo doc so I assume that we scan a ton more than a specialist's office. Hence our 62 GB of II (scanners are even set to maximal compression and lowest resolution).
How exactly are you keeping your II folder so small?
Im not sure how fast its growing, but our II may need to be assessed before its too late.

Hi Josue,

Unfortunately F.A.P. (we try to use the periods given the other definition, which we were not aware of at the time), can only be used in a single person practice. It stands for File Assistant Pro. It is a program written by a programmer I use. It is an excellent program. All our faxes come directly into its inbox. It uses AC's demographics to name, and these are imported into the program. It is very fast and efficient. It's nice because you can look up multiple patients very quickly.

The main issue is my developer isn't around much anymore. It doesn't have any bugs, but he is really the only one who can support it. Plus, it would be a bit inefficient to use it and still have so many files in II. You are welcome to download it, but it would have to be used As Is. I mean I could tell you how to install it, but you just need to know these things.

Your upload speed is very fast. It does depend a bit on AC's bandwidth as well. Plus, there are other factors. But, it would seem as though you could back up overnight.

AC does have a seeding program. If you contact them due to speed issues, they will send you a drive and software which you can use to copy your data to the drive then ship it back. After it is loaded to your backup account, you simply do the incrementals.

If you need the data quickly, you can ask them to ship back your latest backup. I would certainly ask what the process is for getting your backup shipped to you if you need it.

Thank you Bert. But I think my curiosity got the best of me. Now that I think about it the fact of the matter is that we already have 60 GB of Imports. And from what I understand F.A.P. just saves them in a different location that still needs backing up. I am just going to monitor how much we are importing and see if our 2TB hard drive will suffice for the future.

As far as the new Backup from AC goes, I'd still prefer to seed. Like you said it all depends on AC's bandwidth...And of course the Internet in general not going down during an upload.

If you have a 60GB II and you want to use AC's back-up.... contact them and tell them in advance that you want to seed your back-up.

It isn't important to me to back up F.A.P./Imported Items to a cloud. I back up locally. The local backup is the most important by far. I am not sure if you can back up the II and the AC database separately, but even with the seeding, I would rather be able to download the AC database in 15 minutes and get my II from my external backups or the ones I take home, etc. You should back up your server every night anyway.

Seeding is great, but you are still at the mercy of AC copying them back and shipping them to you. Even if you get through and they jump right on it, the earliest you could get it would be around 18 hours. I think having AC fully functional and even being able to use II would be a better way to go. After over 11 years, my AC backup is 300MBs. You can upload and download that in approximately 17 minutes. Even a practice with four doctors times 10 years, you should be looking at 1200MBs and 70 minutes.

Hell, you can simply copy and paste your II folder to a USB drive, any external drive or Rsync it to your house.

Hello All,
Regarding the new Amazing Charts Backup, we always attempt to first upload the seed over the internet. Very few practices encounter issues using this preferred method. Given any bandwidth restrictions this initial upload can sometimes take a few weeks. However, once it is uploaded subsequent backups take mere minutes. If we encounter issues uploading this initial seed, we can work with the practice to ensure their backups get uploaded. This can include making changes to the backup sets to optimize bandwidth or if needed sending a drive out to the practice.

Clayton@AC

But they need to know all that in advance. I don't think they do from what we have heard. Also, they need to know very well that they can get the data back quickly using a seeding method. It's too bad you can't still do a database backup and an IIs backup that way.

Not to start a battle here, but this is counter to my experience. After over two months unsuccessfully uploading the seed, no one from AC has mentioned any alternatives at all. Most of my contacts with AC have gone unanswered, including my reply to an e-mail from you (Clayton) last week.

Hi everyone,

At the moment, the new AC off-site backup seems to be the proverbial "epic fail"

We initially started with the new backup in about mid August, when we were still on 6.3.3. Initial backup took about two days, after that things seemed to go well.

We upgraded to 8.2.4 at the end of August. We have not had a successful backup since then. When the backup is running, it seems to be a real bandwidth hog. It seems to slow everything down, including all of the prescription writing functions of Amazing Charts.

After about five days I interrupted the backup. It then restarted that night, and the cycle started again.

So, today, I shut down the backup.



I'm guessing (based on absolutely nothing) that the backup servers are being overwhelmed, probably many people upgraded to 8.2.4 in late August, and many practices are trying to run the initial backup. I would love to be able to back up to a flash drive and mail this to AC.

Also, I really don't think that AC has adequately addressed the issue of restoring from backup. How long would this actually take?

Gene

In order to talk about this, we should all be using the same terms.

There is an initial backup. That is called an initial backup. It can be different ways, but for this, that is done via Internet. It generally takes too long.

A seed is what most companies refer to as copying or backing up your original backup to a hard drive, sending this to the cloud company, and they "seed it" by then copying it to your cloud backup account." To be fair sometimes companies charge for this or at least charge for the restore. The advantage is two-fold. You get your original backup done in less than an hour on your end. And, it takes one to two days to ship to AC. Plus, the restore is predictable.

So:

a) Initial backup via Internet (which likely will take too long
b) Seed: the act of backing up to a drive and sending it via UPS/FedEx/Mail etc.

A hard drive seed should be encrypted and your data be moved to it in the right fashion. This means the company, here AC, has to send you the backup kit.

From being at the CAB meeting and talking about this (as I stated above -- thanks for the data you sent me), there does seem to be a miscommunication as to the logistics as to how this is done, i.e. just giving you the option up front or at least telling you it is likely it will need to be seeded.

Since Clayton has been kind enough to comment here, I would try to talk directly with him. AC has changed its format for email addresses.

Clayton, thanks for your input. Could you please clarify and, if possible, like the other support techs, put your email address in your signature.

Thanks!

Also, everyone, the old normal AC database backup, generally around 75 MBs is, by far, the MOST important backup. It's great to be able to do both, but your practice is SEVERELY in danger if you do not have your patient data. And, you can't use AC without its being replaced.

Your imported items, of course, are very important, but you can function without them. Keep doing what you are doing to try to get this working, but until then, PLEASE back up your II locally. Please make sure you have what used to be the amazingcharts.enc backup somewhere. Not sure the name of it anymore. Ends in .enc. You can back that up the cloud daily too. My .enc backup takes 5 1/2 minutes to create locally, which I do, and 17 to 18 minutes to the cloud. I tend to back it up in several places, which is one really good thing about the old backup.

I could be wrong. I thought I checked. But, is the old backup software still in the AC folder as before? I think it is. I would suggest you use it and/or do both once everything is set up.

I REALLY CAN'T STRESS ENOUGH THAT YOU SHOULDN'T GO WITHOUT ANY backup because of issues with the new AmazingBackup.

I did check again and am running the original backup program in 8.2.4 that I have set up in a virtual machine.

CAVEAT: I don't have the new backup, which is generally set up via appointment with AC. I do not know if you lose functionality in the original AC backup after. I doubt it. I also don't know if it works properly. Haven't done a restore.

Once done with these test backup, I will test the restore.

To update, Clayton called our office today and made some changes. We all have our fingers crossed.

The regular backup program backs up to the AC folder.

II can be backed up locally, even copied and pasted.

As a reminder that I have stated many, many times. The most important backup you can do is a local backup of your "main computer" nightly. All other backups are secondary, but important.

People forget this. They focus on their AC backup. If you backup your server nightly and check it periodically, you will never lose your data.

+ 1

Greg

Let me reiterate. And, you guys and girls know I am responsive, I should work for support, lol.

Let's call an Intenet backup (just uploading) the inital backup. Generally, it will take some time. I will ask Sandeep to post a table on this.

Again, just so we are on the same page, seeding, would be backing up or copying to a hard drive and sending it to AC. (sorry Greg, I am not trying to be mean or anything).

I don't really like reporting from the Clinical Advisory Board meetings for a number of reasons, but the reason I started this thread was to talk about this very thing.

I didn't think AC was even offering seeding (the hard drive thing). But, they are. There is simply a miscommunication here. I think what should happen is when you first get the backup installed (I think they do it for you), they should send out the (backup kit).

Also, AC has recently changed their formatting for emails. Now, they should forward the old emails. For instance, it used to be first name@amazingcharts.com, not it is first initial, last name@amazingcharts.com.

Please keep doing your regular .enc backup and copying and pasting or using a backup program to back up your imported items.

I did a backup/restore in 8.2.4 using the original backup software located in the AC folder. Worked great. The restore worked perfectly.

This thread is getting a bit crazy. So let's recap.

1) AC has a new backup service that lets you backup Imported Items incrementally. This means once you're Imported Items are uploaded for the first time. This will take a very long time for most people. After the initial upload is complete, you'll just have to upload your database backup and any new Imported items you added that day.

2) The time it will take to complete the initial upload depends on your upload speed. We have created a table (as Bert mentioned) as a guideline to determine how long your backup will take. The table only goes up to 50 megabits. We rarely find people with speeds at or above 100 megabits. That's essentially the same speed as a wired network in your office. So in our sample test, we are faster than 90% of the US with an upload speed of 56.34 Megabits. Take a note of your upload speed. Most connections are asymmetric in favor of the downstream meaning your download is usually much higher than the upload (Time Warner, Comcast, etc.)

You can use the these sites to find your upload speed:
http://www.speedtest.net/ (flash-based)
http://speedof.me/ (HTML5-based)


3) The time it will take to complete the initial upload depends on the size of your Imported Items folder. Just as a side note, your average provider's database backup will be under 200 MB and that grows very slowly. Your Imported Items can grow very rapidly especially if load a lot of scans and imaging studies into a patient's chart.

Here is the table mentioned before:


So if you have 50 GB to backup and a 3 Megabit UPLOAD speed, it would take roughly 40 hours to complete your initial upload. You can only upload probably 8-10 hours a night. So about 4-5 days for your Imported Items to finish uploading. You can probably just do it over the Internet. But if you have say 100GB of Imported Items and a 1 Megabit Upload, you're looking at 230 hours to complete the initial upload. Realistically, 30 days to backup. That's when you want to request a seed drive from AC.

Just remember AC backup only backs up AC. If you store files outside of AC (probably 99% of users), you need to backup those up as well.

And maybe its just been a long day for me or I'm really getting paranoid about what needs to be backed up.

Firstly, we are still using the [OLD] AC Backup with [OLD] Offsite backup to AC. Again since we have 60 GB of II we set it to backup without II. This creates a 605 MB practiceName.enc file in the BACKUP folder of AC. This and only this file is uploaded to AC. AC Backup also copies that .ENC file to a NAS hard drive.

To backup our II we use Windows Backup nightly. It essentially copies the II folder to the NAS, as well as another pair of USB hard drives that are taken home.

Isn't that all that is required to restore AC in the event of a disaster. I only say this because "Database backup" has been mentioned in this thread. If I'm not mistaken the database(s) files all reside in the root AC folder and range from 3 GB to a couple of MB (AmazingCharts.mdf, Meds.ldf). I have never manually backed up these files because I thought they were restored during a restoration using the whatever is in the ENC file. Am I mistaken or are these database files supposed to be backed up as well?

Yes that is all that is needed to restore AC. Make it point to understand and test your restoration process. The databases are included in the enc file.

#1 Use Server backup to take a complete image backup of your server nightly
#2 Use AC Backup to backup your Database (.enc) to an external drive
#3 Use a file-based backup to backup your II to an external drive. (SyncToy, Syncback, etc.)

Test your backup on a secondary computer to make sure it actually works.

An important note: Remember that when AC sets up the new cloud backup, you no longer have a local backup of your II. #3 becomes very important. You will need to use a third party tool to accomplish this. Many are unaware their local backup is incomplete now. Cloud is the only place with a full backup