NextGen® Data Protection services (NDP) (powered by LiveVault) provides automated and continuous backup, with protection intervals as low as every fifteen minutes, to ensure data is protected as it is created. NDP delivers fully automated backup over the Internet or a private network connection for uninterrupted remote data protection. Data is moved offsite to secure, mirrored data centers and is completely secure and protected at every step of the way using stringent procedures, protocols, and standards. NDP encrypts all data at the source using 256-bit AES encryption with a unique private/public key pair. For an additional layer of protection, NDP uses the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) protocol to establish a secure, resilient communication tunnel to offsite data centers.
Recovery is simple and straightforward. Organizations can select which data to recover from a catalog of archived file versions; NDP then automatically restores the data to the location of your choice. NDP uses the cloud to automatically transfer data offsite for disaster recovery. Data is backed up off-premise (optionally to an on premise, hybrid-cloud device) shortly after being updated, allowing you to restore data from moments before a disaster occurs. Please reference our client success story and our attachment to learn more about NextGen Data Protection services (NDP).
Client Success Story – Disaster Recovery: NextGen Data Protection services (NDP)
If you don’t wish to find yourself sitting on a gurney along with your SQL database server with cables choking you around the neck, you better read this note. One Hospital IT staff member said to another, “What is that person in a white coat doing sitting on a gurney in our department with that massive server by his side?” The response: “Oh, that’s just Dr. Berg up to no good again.”
Approximately eight years ago I got a call around 9 AM on a Saturday morning that our staff could not access the NextGen database. Upon arrival at my office 20 minutes later I found lots of amber lights on our SQL server. Not a good sign. A support call to NextGen resulted in my finding out that we had corrupt hard drives that resulted in our not being able to access our data. Multiple different attempts were made to restore our system which failed over the next 24 to 36 hours.
Fortunately we had NextGen Data Protection services (NDP) in place at the time which in the end of this saga resulted in no loss of data. The restore process was more complicated than I had anticipated. The bottom line is the more redundancy you have built in place to deal with disaster recovery, the better off you will be.
Since our download Internet speed eight years ago was about 3 Mb per second, we had to find another solution. At about 5:00 in the morning Pacific Standard Time (PST) NextGen Healthcare’s Tech Support connected. I then conferenced in our Hospital IT Administrator. Two hours later our old SQL server was lifted onto a gurney and wheeled over to the hospital information technology department, about 100 yards from our office location since they had a 40 Mb/sec pipe to the Internet. Eight hours later our data was fully restored and we were back in business.
I could not have done this without the fabulous support that I received from NextGen Healthcare’s Tech Support and the team of NDP staff to assist us. In addition, we were fortunate to have the staff at NDP and our hospital IT Department staff to support us. One good thing that came out of this is that the hospital information technology team put me in touch with ITS Pros under the leadership of David Rosenberg. David Rosenberg and his team have been handling our IT support needs ever since. We now have two additional layers of disaster recovery planning in place and have not experienced any similar mishaps.
I personally find it very reassuring to know that we have NextGen Data Protection services in place to restore our data in the event of another disaster that is out of our control. Just remember Murphy’s law: “What can go wrong will go wrong.” You need to have NDP in place to prevent you from losing data and placing your practice and patients at risk.