O3 Hardware & System Requirements

Owned by Grace Potma
Last updated: Jul 23, 2024
3 min read

Minimum Hardware Requirements

We recommend you choose your hardware and system requirements based on your real-world needs, such as your number of users or expected patient records. NOTE: These specifications are assuming a bare metal installation of the OS. Running this as a VM on a Windows computer for any production use is NOT recommended.

  • Minimum (1-10 users): Quad-core or higher desktop-class processor, 8 GB RAM, 100+GB HDD

  • Recommended (10+ users): 8 Core+ processor, 16 GB RAM, 100+ HDD in RAID configuration, and with backup facilities

  • Cloud Requirements (AWS):

    • Minimum: EC2 t3.medium (1-10 users)

    • Recommended: t3.large (8GB RAM, more processors) or higher, depending on the number of users

  • Current O3 Demo Environments Specs:

    • The O3 Demo environment currently has: RAM 16GB, Disk space 50GB, and 4 CPUs (however, we don’t actually use all of this).

Backups

  • Always have a RAID (Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks): Mirrors your instance, so if it dies, there is always a backup ready for you.

  • As a widely embraced data backup strategy, the 3-2-1 Rule prescribes:

    • Maintain three copies of your data: This includes the original data and at least two copies.

    • Use two different types of media for storage: Store your data on two distinct forms of media to enhance redundancy.

    • Keep at least one copy off-site: have one backup copy stored in an off-site location, separate from your primary data and on-site backups.

Operating System

  • We recommend Ubuntu LTS

  • Always make sure to use a supported operating system, not one which has gone end of life. Make sure your operating system is kept up to date to avoid security issues.

    • If you are using Windows, be careful not to be using an unsupported Windows version.

  • Always use a licensed operating system to avoid data breaches. Pirated copies of OS like Windows often contain malware.

Browser

  • We strongly recommend Chrome or Chromium. Firefox receives some community testing coverage. Edge is not actively supported.

Tablet-Specific Considerations

  • At minimum, we recommend the following Tablet specifications. Of course, there are only minimum; if higher specification is low-cost to obtain, we certainly encourage that.

    • OS Minimum: Device should support Android version 13 or higher

    • RAM Minimum: 4GB or more

    • Storage Minimum: 32GB or more

    • Processor Minimum: ARM version 7 or higher

  • Note about running with lower-spec tablets: Yes, it’s possible. We have seen some production sites trying to use OpenMRS v3 on 3GB 2019 Android tablets. These performed poorly, in part due to the old OS and very low RAM. This is why we recommend the above minimum capacity.

Our Stress-Testing Process (how we came to these guidelines) This Section in PRogress

  • Automated performance & load testing using Gatling in Q2 2024 is ongoing to review and confirm these minimum requirements. Remaining: replicated GitHub actions for Gatling in AWS in May 2024. Thread here.