openVPMS: Backing Up and Restoring Your openVPMS Data

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CONTENTS

• Introduction
• Backing Up Your Data
• Scheduled Backups
• Restoring Your Data

1. Introduction

Why do I need to backup my computer? I've never had a problem before.  ("Famous last words"!)
It's often been said of hard drive failure: " it's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when."

If you haven't lost data yet, count yourself lucky! It WILL happen. It happens if you lose data due to power surges or loss of power whilst writing data (and yes, you're probably thinking your UPS on the server protects you from that eventuality), equipment failure, a computer virus attack, or some other catastrophic event like a fire. Whilst hardware is cheap and easy to replace, consider how much it would cost to restore lost data (do you even have hard copy of your clinical records any more?).

Backing up your data and keeping that information somewhere "safe-and separate" means you will always have a copy of your data, just in case something tragic happens to your server..

2. Backing Up Your Data

This tutorial is based on the assumption that you have downloaded and installed MySQL GUI Tools from the MySQL archive site as per this link: Windows Installer (.msi). Newer versions of MySQL are called Workbench and the abilty to schedule backups is no longer available. There are also versions for Linux and Mac OS here.

Open your MySQL Administrator.

Log in with your username and password.

Click on Backup (1) and New Project (2).

Give your backup "Project" a name (3), click on openvpms (4), then the right arrow (5)........

....then click Execute Backup Now.

You then will be asked where to save your backup. This can be a folder on your current drive, a folder on another internal drive, or a removable drive. You can even browse to another computer on your network. Once you've selected your folder, click Ok to commence your backup. The current date (in yyyymmdd format) and time (in 24hour format) will be added to your project name.

The backup commences, you will be kept informed of its progress.

Once the backup concludes, click OK to close.

3. Scheduled Backups

Open your MySQL Administrator.

Log in with your username and password.

Click on Backup (1) and New Project (2).

Give your backup "Project" a name (3), click on openvpms (4), then the right arrow (5):

Click on Schedule (6). Check-mark Schedule this.... (7), select the target folder for the backup (8) and give your backup file a name (to which a timestamp will be applied) (9). From the drop down box (10), you can set an Execution Time - the day and time you wish to run your backup:

To select a different target folder, click on the ellipsis (5 above); a folder browser will open: you point to the target drive and/or folder and click Save:

If you select daily, you only need to select a start time in the format 00:00:00 MM (where MM is AM or PM) or 00:00 (24 hour clock):

If you select weekly, you will be able to check-mark the days of the week on which you wish to run the backup, then select a start time in the format 00:00:00 MM (where MM is AM or PM) or 00:00 (24 hour clock):

If you select monthly, you will be able to select the day of the month on which you wish to backup, then select a start time in the format 00:00:00 MM (where MM is AM or PM) or 00:00 (24 hour clock):

Once that's done Save Project (11); enter the user name and password (admin username and password on the server) (12) and click OK (13).

Your scheduled project is now saved and will run automatically at the date and time you've specified without any further input by you.

If you right-click on the Project name, you'll be presented with two options: Refresh Backup Project(s), whereby you can edit any of the parameters of this project, then Save; and Delete Backup Project(s), which is pretty self-explanatory.

You can set up as many Scheduled Projects as you wish, and each one will run at its appointed time (make sure that you don't have a time clash whereby two or more scheduled backups could be running at the same time).

4. Restoring Your Data

Open your MySQL Administrator.

Log in with your username and password.

Click on Restore (1) and Open Backup File (2).

A file browser will open, usually at the last folder you used for backup. Select the file you wish to restore from (you can see your backup files sorted by date and time) and click Ok:

Click on Original schema (4) and then click Start Restore (5):

Alternatively, if you wish to restore to another schema (for instance, you've created a demo or learning version of OpenVPMS {see Creating a Demo Version Of openVPMS}) you can click on Another schema, then select your schema (6), and then click Start Restore (7):

The restore commences, you will be kept informed of its progress.....

... and its conclusion. You can now close MySQL Administrator.

Hope this is of some help to you.
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