dhis2-users team mailing list archive

[Olav Poppe <olav.poppe@xxxxxxxxx>]

Yes, sounds like disabling some modules might be something to consider. We're waiting for a document detailing the connectivity at various offices at the moment, hopefully that will give a better overview of how big issue this will be.

As for the HW, the only thing I know at the moment is that the machines (windows) running the current system will be used for DHIS 2 as well. So it will probably vary quite a bit from location to location.

Olav

Den 18. aug. 2011 kl. 15:34 skrev Bob Jolliffe:

> On 18 August 2011 16:14, Knut Staring <knutst@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> On Thu, Aug 18, 2011 at 4:25 PM, Bob Jolliffe <bobjolliffe@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>> 
>>> On 18 August 2011 14:40, Olav Poppe <olav.poppe@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>> I wonder about the merits of a stripping out the metadata maintenance
>>> modules in a such a lite-lite install?  Not sure how crippling this
>>> would be.  Metadata import being the only way to update metadata.
>>> Maybe that's too draconian but it could work for ultra-offline data
>>> entry.
>> 
>> I would recommend being quite draconian and pretty much disable the whole
>> Maintenance menu and quite a bit of the services menu as well. And then
>> train them really well on the remaining parts, and creating a targeted,
>> short and simple manual (ideally accompanied by some video clips) so that
>> support can be kept to a minimum (or at worst done over the phone).
> 
> And I thought I was the draconian one :-)  Still if its only a matter
> of removing some modules from a custom pom it could be worth looking
> at.  Olav maybe you want to try and see how it looks.
> 
>> The emphasis on eliminating moving parts and sources of error of course also
>> harks back to you "DHIS appliance" idea, Bob. One could even think of
>> running DHIS Live with H2 off USB sticks (though they are flimsy), which
>> could even be made to boot up something like DamnedSmallLinux.
> 
> I'm not too convinced by the usb stick idea.  Not that its not doable.
> And I think its probably great for demos (WHO-on-a-stick) but in
> real-life I don't think these sticks are well suited for database
> read-writes.
> 
> One of the issues people do tend to have with h2 is a lack of
> supporting tools to diagnose when things go wrong.  And I'd hate to be
> on the phone to someone stepping through openoffice+jdbc setup or the
> like.  If I were to ship h2 into the darkness of many remote districts
> I think I would write a couple of really simple and small diagnostic
> tools to test the integrity and health of the database and ship that
> too.  Just the "where there is no doctor" common sorts of faults.
> Then when I get the call "help!  my dhis2-ultra-lite doesn't work",
> I'd ask them to run the diagnostic tool and read out the diagnosis
> over the phone to quickly figure out if the h2 file is corrupted, or
> metadata is misconfigured or what have you.  Planning for 170 offline
> installs (or some reasonable proportion of that number) is no picnic.
> The more work up front to make those calls easier the better.
> 
> Cheers
> Bob
> 
>> Knut
>> 
>>> 
>>> Bob
>>> 
>>>> Olav
>>>> 
>>>> Den 18. aug. 2011 kl. 13:32 skrev Jason Pickering:
>>>> 
>>>> I agree with both Bob and Ola.
>>>> We have tried not quite yet succeeded in getting DHIS2 installed with
>>>> Tomcat/Postgres on Windows with a one-click installer, this my caveat
>>>> about
>>>> a "supervised" install. There are a lot of things which can happen on
>>>> users
>>>> machines and maintenance becomes a huge issue. DHIS is still under
>>>> intense
>>>> development, and a lot of things change quickly. Upgrading a single
>>>> server
>>>> is a piece of cake. Upgrading dozens or hundreds of off-line machines is
>>>> a
>>>> true nightmare and a serious risk and resource drain to any deployment.
>>>> I agree with Ola. Totally exclude an on-line server as an option first.
>>>> If
>>>> you have already done that, all I can say is, be prepared for a LOT of
>>>> tech
>>>> support.
>>>> Regards,
>>>> Jason
>>>> 
>>>> On Thu, Aug 18, 2011 at 3:15 PM, Ola Hodne Titlestad <olati@xxxxxxxxxx>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>> 
>>>>> Olav,
>>>>> How offline are these districts? Can they not get connected through
>>>>> mobile
>>>>> usb modems/dongles? There is so much to gain from online deployment
>>>>> that I
>>>>> would check out every alternative of connectivity before deciding to go
>>>>> completely offline. The mobile Internet solution is working very well
>>>>> in
>>>>> Kenya. With the offline data entry capabilities in the upcoming 2.4,
>>>>> the
>>>>> districts do not have to be online during the data entry process, which
>>>>> is a
>>>>> major advantage in areas with poor/unstable connectivity.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Further recommendations on deployment can be found in the
>>>>> implementation
>>>>> guide here:
>>>>> http://dhis2.org/doc/snapshot/en/implementer/html/ch04.html
>>>>> And a presentation on the same topic in the zip file with
>>>>> implementation
>>>>> guide slides here:
>>>>> http://dhis2.org/download/presentations/presentations.zip
>>>>> Ola
>>>>> -------
>>>>> 
>>>>> ----------------------------------
>>>>> Ola Hodne Titlestad (Mr)
>>>>> HISP
>>>>> Department of Informatics
>>>>> University of Oslo
>>>>> 
>>>>> Mobile: +47 48069736
>>>>> Home address: Vetlandsvn. 95B, 0685 Oslo, Norway. Googlemaps link
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> On 18 August 2011 15:02, Jason Pickering <jason.p.pickering@xxxxxxxxx>
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> One strong reason not to use it is the relative lack of testing. In
>>>>>> theory, it should work, but just as with MySQL, much more testing has
>>>>>> occurred with Postgres than with the other database systems.
>>>>>> We have some beta-level Windows installers, which might be of interest
>>>>>> to
>>>>>> you, which work pretty well under supervised circumstances. It might
>>>>>> be
>>>>>> something to consider if you want a relatively automated install of
>>>>>> the
>>>>>> DHISLive/Postgresql stack, with automated restore of the database.
>>>>>> Regards,
>>>>>> Jason
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> On Thu, Aug 18, 2011 at 2:48 PM, Olav Poppe <olav.poppe@xxxxxxxxx>
>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Hello,
>>>>>>> we're looking at what do to with offline installations for the
>>>>>>> implementation here in Ghana. Are there any reasons not to use DHIS
>>>>>>> Live?
>>>>>>> Can H2 be used (importing the metadata into an empty database), or
>>>>>>> should
>>>>>>> postgres be set up as well?
>>>>>>> There are 170 districts here, and about half of them might have to be
>>>>>>> offline installs so an easy-to-use solutions would be good.
>>>>>>> Thanks,
>>>>>>> Olav
>>>>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>> 
>>>> 
>>> 
>>> _______________________________________________
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>> 
>> 
>> 
>> --
>> Cheers,
>> Knut Staring
>>