Anybody Have Experience With Dentrix?

[scandalist]

Dentrix for those unfamiliar is a database application commonly used in dental offices. I worked for a dental office about a year ago that needed to migrate to a new server...due to budgeting requirements I ended up setting this particular office up with one of those ****** Poweredge T110's (basically a desktop PC) and virtualized the original Windows XP OS in virtualbox under Ubuntu.

Long story short I got them up and running but performance was shoddy at best and they noticed which is why I probably haven't received any more tech calls from these guys.

Got a call from a dental office today with the same issue and this time I want to do it right and migrate to real a server. Has anybody migrated a Dentrix database to a new server succesfully?

Thanks

 

[bigdessert]

I have extensive Dentrix use and have gone through what you are dealing with. To start off let me know server and workstation specs. For server include raid setup and number of drives.

 

[scandalist]

I have extensive Dentrix use and have gone through what you are dealing with. To start off let me know server and workstation specs. For server include raid setup and number of drives.

I meet with the guy tomorrow but I can tell you right now from the sound of his voice that he's a true penny scraper...meaning as much as I'd like to quote a server with RAID 1 SAS drives and a second RAID 5 for data its probably going to go the way of the dodo in the form of an el cheapo Win 7 box.

Also I might end up hosting it on my Server 2008 VPS for a monthly charge which if I can swing it would be a sweet deal

Without these details, what can you tell me about the migration proccess?

Lets safely assume we would be going from a 32 bit XP to a x64 server 2008 R2

Your knowledge is truly appreciated

 

[nlinecomputers]

Are you ready for the Hipaa compliance issues of hosting this on your systems?

 

[CompConfig]

I have several dental offices as clients. We deal with Dentrix, scanX, Dexis, Simplant and a few others. I mention this because they each have their own quirks. Dexix works great with a domain controller but is best with static IPs. Dentrix is good with server 2003 and Windows 7 but had issues with server 2012. None are yet approved for Windows 8. If you give me more details I can help you.

 

[bigdessert]

1. get all network up to gigabit.
2. throw some ssd drives in the workstations you won't be sorry(doubled chart load times in my experience).
3. Get the data on a separate set of spindles than the OS on the server. Preferable RAID 10 with 3 or more spindle groups(6 drives).
4. Run the dentrix EDDE on each workstation(support can get it to you or if you need it let me know). Make sure you do the suggested performance fixes on each workstation. This step helps tremendously!

I also know on Dentrix when some of my customers switched to "perfect day" scheduling it caused performance issues. Many extra popups when creating appointments.

 

[Markverhyden]

Virtualbox should never be used for a business. I've got Praticeworks running on Parallels with only one issue. The new intra-oral cameras and x-ray sensors are crap in a virtual environment.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

Dental office software is all about speed...don't go cheap with a desktop grade server. Go SAS....go 15k SAS....I'd do RAID 1 for the OS, and RAID 10 for the data volume will be better than RAID 5 performance wise.

Moving Dentrix from one server to another is pretty easy, the Dentrix server admin utility makes it easy to export 'n import. Dentrix has good hand holding guides in their support section.

 

[ArtemusComputerTechnology]

I'm very knowledgeable about Dentrix. You do not want to install it on a desktop pc functioning as a server. You will need an actual server for alot of reasons. Speed is number 1. I'm a SysAdmin for a non profit and I'm the go to for any Dentrix issues. The server is running server 08 r2 with a total of 200GB with raid 5 of storage and 8GB of ram with SAS hd's. Did I mention that it is a VM. We also use sidexis, which captures patients dental images. Trust me do not go cheap with this setup.

 

[scandalist]

I'm very knowledgeable about Dentrix. You do not want to install it on a desktop pc functioning as a server. You will need an actual server for alot of reasons. Speed is number 1. I'm a SysAdmin for a non profit and I'm the go to for any Dentrix issues. The server is running server 08 r2 with a total of 200GB with raid 5 of storage and 8GB of ram with SAS hd's. Did I mention that it is a VM. We also use sidexis, which captures patients dental images. Trust me do not go cheap with this setup.

That's funny because the system its currently running on is an old XP box, 1 gig of memory and a dual core CPU. I asked the dentist how the performance of the dentrix application was and he said great, the only reason he is upgrading is the slowly dwindling HD space. Granted they only have about 7 users accessing the database.

budget is a 1000 USD possibly with a little wiggle room so I'm currently specing out systems from dell and HP. I'm thinking to skimp on CPU and memory and put more emphasis on quality SAS drives which seem to be more relevant to a database - you guys can correct me here if I'm wrong.


I am not so much interested in the hardware reccomendations rather than the process of actually migrating the database so any info you have on that would be great. They do have the Dentrix support subscribstion and I imagine I will be spending most of the time on the phone setting up remote access and assigning proper permissions to folders etc.

Glad to see there are people with experience in this area, knowing Dentrix alone could be a major niche market for those on the fence about where to take their business.

 

[Markverhyden]

The underlying hardware requirements for the "server" depend on how many concurrent workstation sessions there are plus the activities such as record updating, imaging, etc. I've had customers with Practiceworks running on similar hardware as the OP but they only had 2-4 chairs. Never had a problem.