@BRRABill said:

My drive failed almost immediately. I mean, whatever happened rebooted the server.

Go right ahead. Did that drive fail after replacement while it was in a degraded state? Id say your controller is failing if that happened.

On a side note, I pretty much only use RAID 1 mirror w 1 hot spare (3 disks total) these days in what I do. The apps I deal with and code for (mostly) are OLTP with tons of tiny write transactions. Using a small stripe size and only two disks, this setup benchmarks 13x faster write speeds for me than a RAID5 array with 4 disks, all day, according to AS SSD. The way we coded our software and designed the database everything uses GUID's for PK. GoDaddy premium dns provides round-robin load balancing ( I don't manage that part). In Proliant servers (dl360 G7 for example) I like to install both backplane kits and split the RAID1 mirror between backplanes. This is just to show as example that there's really not a one-size-fits-all solution for server configurations and redundancy. The software I develop (or run) dictates what I am able to do with the hardware.

@scottalanmiller
Ill be damned. I just checked and there is a web UI I never saw.

@scottalanmiller said:

@drewlander said:

@scottalanmiller said:

the same OS

I have no experience with Synology to speak of, but having used QNAP's and owning several Netgear ReadyNAS (2x2100 and 2x3200), I think I lean towards QNAP these days. They are cheap and powerful. Also I hate the ReadyNAS "RaidAR" app for maintaining the devices. Why Netgear couldn't put together a decent Web UI blows my mind. Freakin "Net" is in their feakin name, and they historically have been an electronics company for network devices. Browsers should not be new to them. sigh.

The RAIDar app is just for initial detection. ReadyNAS has always been a web interface to maintain going back a really long time, at least. RAIDar is many years, maybe a decade, more recent than the web interface and even the most current has a web interface. You never need the RAIDar, that's just for non-IT people to set it up if they don't know how to get to a web interface on a system that has not been set up for L3 networking yet. It's definitely web and the same style web interface as their other gear.

I swear I have never seen the webUI, but if it exists I bet it requires an HTTPS prefix that I probably didnt provide. After much thought tho, I bet they did RAIDar for a consolidated nas management application they couldnt pull off with a web browser.

@BRRABill That Chinese character means "Spring".

@scottalanmiller said:

the same OS

I have no experience with Synology to speak of, but having used QNAP's and owning several Netgear ReadyNAS (2x2100 and 2x3200), I think I lean towards QNAP these days. They are cheap and powerful. Also I hate the ReadyNAS "RaidAR" app for maintaining the devices. Why Netgear couldn't put together a decent Web UI blows my mind. Freakin "Net" is in their feakin name, and they historically have been an electronics company for network devices. Browsers should not be new to them. sigh.

To the best of my knowledge, the Express Editions do not have an Agent. You might also encounter another issue if you rely on report subscriptions.

@BRRABill Sounds like a situation I had to deal with last year where an organization was running Dell PowerEdge 2950 Gen II pizza boxes. I tried reasoning with them explaining that 9 year old servers should not be production machines for mission critical systems. They didn't seem to care about business continuity until they started failing.

@BRRABill said:

0 anxiety scale because that kind of stuff always makes me nervous. Anyway, no problem, I have spare drives on the shelf ready to go. I pull out the

In complete honesty I will admit that one time I was cold swapping a failed drive in a proliant dl360G5 and replaced the wrong one. Fortunately the server wouldnt even boot and I was able to power it down, sort it out and bring it back up. Since then I will never run a server without the backplane kit and hot swappable drive caddies with the status indicator LED.

@scottalanmiller said:

Carefully worded.... there is no guarantee of uptime or performance, only a guarantee of "100% SLA". That is, quite literally, gibberish. It has no meaning whatsoever.

This is so funny. I frequently read contracts with garbage like this for new clients to help get them on track. Just yesterday I had a client send me their Rackspace contract. They're paying 550/mo for what they thought was a dedicated server, but what they got was "Dedicated Account Management and Business Development Team". So basically they've been paying 550/mo for a VPS running Windows Server 2008 to host Quickbooks for two people. sigh.

@Dashrender said:

@BRRABill said:

@scottalanmiller said:

but as imaging rights for a full company are only about $120, it doesn't take much IT time saving to justify.

Is that per machine?

This is not the whole picture.

Sure Software Assurance for one workstation is $120, but if you don't have a pre existing VL agreement, it's not just $120 to get into one, or keep it going once you're in.

You have to buy at least 5 Open Value licenses to start a Volume License Agreement. To get into this with the lowest spend that would be 4 Windows Server CALs without Software Assurance ($75/ea) and 1 Workstation Software Assurance license ($120).

So the bare minimum to get started is $420, and this is good for 3 years, then you have to renew, for roughly the same cost.

Also, you can only purchase Workstation SA for computer that you acquired in the last 90 days. So if it's been more than 90 days, you would have to purchase a Workstation upgrade with Software Assurance for $115/yr from CDW or $345 for 3 years, though the renewal will be at the above stated $120 for 3 years.

Actually they have some DVD thing I recall that is less than ten bucks. Ill have to check my VLSC account ;-p. So it would be like 150.

@scottalanmiller said:

Imaging is not a good way to backup a machine because it assumes you are restoring to the same hardware. What if you need to restore to a different OS version (this could mean nothing more than different patch levels?)

Several times I have found that cloning data to different hardware is a disaster. Usually this occurs when I have different partition sizes because the disks are not an exact match. Windows flips its lid if it doesn't like the partition alignment. Things like disk queue length go down the toilet and I end up having to run a clean install in the end. Also you can end up with different chipset and network card drivers, etc.I think manufacturers started imaging with a "Recovery partition" for this very reason. Of course with Windows 8+ you can Refresh the OS on demand. In a virtualized situation this has never been a problem for me though; Only physical imaging and clones. That is my empirical experience and does not answer any of the questions the OP asked however.

To address the OP's question's:

1. Your software settings are vendor specific. You would have to investigate each software individually.

2. There are a ton of options to inventory software. Ideally you would do this from a central point of management.
   Powershell
   https://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/scriptcenter/Software-Inventory-using-f2870b19

OpenAudIT
https://opmantek.com

3. If you have a donations database, I would first ask what is the RDBMS? If I could utilize some sort of transactional replication then it would happen.

4. Virtualization\Imaging
   If you have an **OEM **license it's against the terms to reuse that license by the MS Licensing terms that I know. If you have a Retail license I dont think there is any issue doing a p2v and re-using the same license to go virtual. (double check with MS on that)

I hope that is what you were asking.

thx
-d

@scottalanmiller said:

What form does that form take?

There is no mandate to document on paper or electronically; There is only incentive branded as "Meaningful Use". Additionally there is no requirement to transmit that file in either format. Moreover, when a release of records request is made, the office processing the request may charge a reasonable fee to prepare and send those records. That fee is governed by state law where applicable. And to be very clear, a patients records do not belong to the patient whatsoever. A patient is not entitled to scanned copies of everything in their chart. Basically you are entitled to what you already know. Diagnoses, medications and test results.

http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/privacy/hipaa/understanding/consumers/medicalrecords.html

@scottalanmiller What happens if patients are in the same city? They (or POA) have to consent to a release of medical records.

It looks like there is an expression builder for calculated fields MS Access. Maybe that is what you require?

Youtube Video

I dont know much about MS Access but I have tons of experience in SSRS. The way Microsoft expects code in most of their products is based on VB syntax in my experience. I found that in their products you cannot group filters, even in SSRS, so in that case I evaluate multiple conditions in a single expression returning TRUE or FALSE, then set the filter calling the expression to check against the value returned from the expression. So I am not sure what the MS Access equivalent would be without installing MS access, but I would write an expression like this in SSRS as example:

=iif(((Parameters!pShowCurrent.Value
AndAlso Fields!Detail_Age_Days.Value >= 0
AndAlso Fields!Detail_Age_Days.Value <= 30)
OrElse
(Parameters!pShow31to60.Value
AndAlso Fields!Detail_Age_Days.Value > 30
AndAlso Fields!Detail_Age_Days.Value < 61)
OrElse
(Parameters!pShow61to90.Value
AndAlso Fields!Detail_Age_Days.Value > 60
AndAlso Fields!Detail_Age_Days.Value < 91)
OrElse
(Parameters!pShow91to120.Value
AndAlso Fields!Detail_Age_Days.Value > 90
AndAlso Fields!Detail_Age_Days.Value < 121)
OrElse
(Parameters!pShowPlus120.Value
AndAlso Fields!Detail_Age_Days.Value > 120)
) AndAlso (
(Parameters!pResubmitFilter.Value
AndAlso Fields!Detail_Age_Days.Value > Parameters!pResubmitFilter.Value ))
, true, false)

This allows me to group conditions how I would directly in the SQL statement. My filter then would evaluate if the expression is true or false and then filter the results as needed. I know this specifically pertains to SSRS, but I bet MS Access does something similar.

Ill poke around and see if MS Access has a similar way of doing this when I have a chance.

thx
-d

@Dashrender Right. So scrap the thread and lets start over. Basically this being written in PHP with a MySQL backend is great. So simple to modify and tailor as needed. Also I think it can be easily integrated into other projects if that ever came up.

@scottalanmiller In my experience with saltwater tanks, minerals are kinda like buffers for the ph somtimes, so that is another concern.

@Dashrender said:

e had a reverse osmosis for drin

Im not an expert, but I think you are going to want an RO with Remineralization if you intend on drinking the water.

@scottalanmiller said:

http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/privacy/hipaa/understanding/special/healthit/eaccess.pdf

Access is heavily governed. Not sure how equal access would apply, but given the amount of right to access law there is, I would not want to do anything that did not treat all customers equally as that likely would violate something in there. Have not found that specifically but because of the type of law that it is I expect that to be implicit if nothing else.

As I understand them, HIPAA laws are crafted to protect the patient, and penalize end users for the misuse of the data. Your argument is in defense of the doctors, not the patients. When data crosses borders to another country, I cannot effectively govern the use of that data outside of the United States as it pertains to HIPAA. As a host in the United States how can you apply the laws of the United States to cross-border data flows into countries that do not recognize the same laws? That's the conundrum. US laws often either do not exist or contradict laws of other countries, therefore I cannot afford to risk the PHI of dozens of practices and potentially millions of patients because one doctor is spending months in the Ukraine. That's his problem and if he wants access to that data he can use an alternate solution such as a VPN to a computer on US soil that is subject to the laws in the US. If that sounds uninviting, then I have done my job to protect that data.

@scottalanmiller said:

@drewlander the legalise looks really strongly like it forbids it since the only way to know how the patterns are working is to expose PHI data! So you'd violate the HIPAA regulation in the attempt to protect it.

Using IP blocking is not an accepted security practice for this sort of thing in any environment I have ever encountered. HIPAA requires reasonable security, yes, and opening up PHI data (valuable) to do IP blocking (negligible) would not constitute that IMHO.

I will agree that the only way to do this properly is to whitelist access to sensitive data, but without every party involved having a static IP that is not necessarily possible. In that case, filtering out the bulk of the risk with geoblocking is not for nothing.