Many Implementers have asked for better support in the OpenMRS EMR for Cloud Hosting, Horizontal Scaling, and Clustering.
- Scaling OpenMRS for big programs has been difficult and manual: from scaling to managing, upgrading, and monitoring dozens of instances all deployed manually.
- We didn’t have out-of-the-box support for clustering, multi-tenancy, or high availability, and due to our Implementers’ different needs, we needed to be able to accomplish that with an on-premise solution and not only by using cloud providers like AWS, Microsoft, etc.
- Hosting was often limited to a single EC2-style instance, making performance and uptime harder to manage. YAML-heavy Kubernetes setups were too complex for many Implementers.
We’ve made remarkable progress over the last year - here’s where we are!
Why support cloud, clustering & scaling?
1. Increased reliability & uptime
- Cloud or Kubernetes clusters let you run OpenMRS across multiple servers. If one node fails or is updated, another instantly takes over—so clinics stay online.
- Rolling upgrades mean no downtime during updates or maintenance.
2. Better performance under load
- Horizontal scaling allows you to run multiple OpenMRS application instances behind a load balancer—great for larger facilities or multi-site deployments.
- Databases and indexing (e.g. ElasticSearch, MariaDB replicas) are now set up to scale, improving search and data throughput.
3. Consistent setups, less DevOps burden
- Standardized deployment guides (AWS EC2, Kubernetes/Helm, Docker, OpenShift) let teams follow tried-and-tested configurations rather than reinventing setups.
- Terraform + Helm charts mean you can spin up reliable, cloud-agnostic environments uniformly across regions or data centers.
What’s new in Platform 2.8 to support Cloud & Scale
| Feature | What it does | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Infinispan (distributed cache) | Replaces EHCache with a clustered caching layer for Spring/Hibernate | Ensures consistent caching across app instances, improving performance and reliability. |
| ElasticSearch cluster | Replaces in-memory Lucene search with ElasticSearch/OpenSearch | Enables fast, reliable full-text search across multiple replicas and pods. |
| StorageService | Unified interface for file storage (disk, S3, or plugin extensions) | Separates file storage from the application, so we don’t rely on local disk storage, making it safe for clusters and resilient across nodes thanks to replication and automated backups/versioning. |
| Horizontal scaling support | Dozens of smaller features (liveness check for Kubernetes, setup and runtime configuration via environment/system properties in addition to files, DB replicas support) | Teams can deploy multiple O3, DB and ElasticSearch instances behind load balancers or stick with single-instance setups as needed. |
What this wins for Implementers
- Reliability: no single point of failure
- Performance: can handle increasing loads or multiple clinics/sites
- Portability: deploy consistently across AWS, Azure, GCP, government/private clouds, or on-prem Kubernetes
- Future-proofing: support clusters and multi-tenancy
Try it today!
Platform 2.8 is in alpha now. You can test it via the latest snapshot: Platform 2.8.0‑SNAPSHOT. We plan to release an official version in 1-2 months (see this post).- Use the Helm charts from the openmrs-contrib-cluster repository on Kubernetes or Docker compose
- Explore this 10‑minute demo video showing O3 launched on Kubernetes with a single command.
Thank You & Next Steps
- Huge thanks to Rafal (@raff) for driving these changes and diving deep into Helm, Infinispan, ElasticSearch, storage abstractions, horizontal scaling, and more.
- We’re really grateful for our community code contributors who helped in this work: pidsonn (TRUNK-6318), Bhargav Kodali (TRUNK-6306, TRUNK-6347), Herman Muhereza (TRUNK-6334) and @dkayiwa for diligent and fast reviews!
- Special shout-outs to all implementers who’ve shared their requirements and pain points around cloud and scaling, including @PalladiumKenya, @egpaf, @Intellisoft; @jecihjoy @aojwang @moshon and others. We love hearing from you, keep it coming!!
Want to help or get involved?
- Reply here, or tag your questions with cloud in other Talk posts; or, join a weekly Wednesday community Platform Team call to talk with other engineers (call details on the calendar at om.rs/cal)
- Try the Platform 2.8.0-SNAPSHOT and share your experience.
- Deploy using Helm/Terraform and let us know any gaps.
