OpenVPMS can be installed on either a unix system (most commonly a Ubuntu server), or a Windows system.  For Windows, for small practices you can install on a desktop or laptop running Windows 7 or 8; for larger practices it may be better to use a Windows Server operating system.

OpenVPMS requires the following to be installed:

• Java Platform, Standard Edition 8*
  The Java Runtime Environment (JRE) is the minimum requirement.
  See http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/index.html

• MySQL 5.1.x or 5.5.x
  Version 5.1.53 is the minimum requirement.
  See http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/mysql/5.1.html

  Download the MySQL Community Server 'Generally Available (GA) Release'.

  On Windows, the MySQL installer may require that the Microsoft .Net Framework 4 be installed. This is available from:
  http://www.microsoft.com/en-au/download/details.aspx?id=17851

  The MySQL Workbench is not required by OpenVPMS itself, but if you are going to do any report development, then you will find that the Workbench’s ability to build and test SQL queries is very useful. You can download it from http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/workbench.

• MySQL Connector/J JDBC driver
  See http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/connector/j/5.1.html

    This may be included in the MySQL server installation.

• Tomcat 6.x or Tomcat 7.x
  See http://tomcat.apache.org/download-70.cgi

  On Windows, select the 32-bit/64-bit Windows Service Installer

    If you have installed Java 8, you must use Tomcat 7.0.53 or higher.

• OpenOffice 4.0.x
  See http://www.openoffice.org/download/

   

• Jaspersoft Studio 6.0.3 or higher
  This is only required to customise document templates.
  See https://community.jaspersoft.com/project/jaspersoft-studio/releases

  NOTE: this replaces iReport Designer which is no longer under active development, and does not work with Java 8. Sites running Java 7* can continue to use iReport Designer, but should use 5.0.4 or higher.

• MySQL:
  • should be on the same host as Tomcat
  • should accept connections on port 3306
  • include the following lines in my.ini
    max_allowed_packet=16M
    innodb_file_per_table

* Java 7 will no longer be updated by Oracle as of April 2015. OpenVPMS 1.8 will continue to work with Java 7, but users are encouraged to update to Java 8 to receive bug fixes and security enhancements. Java 8 will be required by OpenVPMS 1.9.