You can install Bahmni on the Cloud, as long as you meet the System Requirements (64-bit CentOS V6.x). One easy way of doing this is on Digital Ocean. Sign up using this referral link (you get 10$ credited to your account). Digital Ocean gives you a computer with a public IP on the cloud, with high speed internet access, and SSD drives. Please read the pricing FAQ for Digital Ocean.
Legal Implications of Cloud Deployments
Many countries have legal restrictions on storing medical data on the cloud. If you are unsure of your local laws & regulations, then please do NOT put real data on the cloud. Use the steps mentioned in this document only to "evaluate" or "play" with Bahmni on the Cloud.
Poor Internet
The advantage with deploying on the Cloud is that you can snapshot your machines, restore them quickly, and don't need to worry about Hardware. Also, if you have slow internet, then you can use a Cloud server, since the cloud machines have high speed internet access for downloads and uploads, while you use a slow ssh connection to talk to the computer. Downloading everything on your own machine can require higher internet speeds, and you may not want to do that if you have poor internet.
Steps to Install Bahmni on Digital Ocean
Step 1: Create an account on Digital Ocean. Sign up using this referral link to get 10$ credited to your account.
Step 2: Create a Droplet with the following settings at minimum (Read steps here):
- 64-bit CentOS (v6.7)
- Minimum 4GB RAM (for evaluation 4GB should be enough. For production use, please see Bahmni system requirements)
- A region close to your location for fast speed
- Enable "Private Networking"
- Add your Public SSH Key (else they will email you a root login password). SSH Key is more secure and recommended.
Step 3: You should be able to login into your machine using the command "ssh root@<ip-of-your-droplet>"
Step 4: Setup swap space on your machine using these steps (for reference read this document). We want to setup 4 GB of swap space.
# Informs you of how much swap space is allocated. if nothing is returned, then its not setup. swapon -s # To setup 4096k (4GB swap space) do these steps: sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/swapfile bs=1024 count=4096k sudo mkswap /swapfile # Activate the swap file sudo swapon /swapfile echo '/swapfile swap swap defaults 0 0' | sudo tee --append /etc/fstab # Check if swap space is setup swapon -s
Now you have a fresh 64-bit CentOS Box available with 4GB swap space setup. You can choose to snapshot this box, so that you don't need to repeat these steps next time you need a fresh box.
NOTE: Digital Ocean servers, and other similar cloud providers can be vulnerable to attacks by malicious hackers. Please ensure you safeguard your droplet, and follow these instructions after having installed Bahmni, to improve the security of your droplet:
https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/7-security-measures-to-protect-your-servers
Step 5: To Install Bahmni follow this document: Install Bahmni on CentOS
