Open Dental Cloud Backup for Dublin Dental Practices

"Open Dental cloud backup" means three different things, and only one of them is a backup plan an office controls. The vendor's hosted cloud backs up the database and image folder for practices it hosts. The vendor's supplemental backups send a copy of critical data to the vendor for offices on support, and the vendor itself says not to rely on them. A third-party online backup service copies the office server offsite on the practice's terms. A Dublin office running its own server needs the third, tested.

Last updated: November 2026

What backups does the vendor's hosted cloud make?

For practices on the vendor's hosted cloud, the vendor publishes a schedule: daily full backups at 11 pm local time kept on site and off site for 3 days, weekly copies kept 6 months, monthly copies kept 1 year and yearly copies kept 3 years, with the frequencies subject to change, and copies available by contacting the vendor. The vendor's cloud page adds that the backups are encrypted, tested for integrity nightly and stored off site, and that after a server failure staff restore the most recent backup to a new server.

That covers hosted practices. It does nothing for an office whose database sits on its own server, and even hosted practices may want a copy they hold themselves.

Are supplemental backups enough?

No, and the vendor says so directly. Supplemental backups automatically send an encrypted copy of critical data to the vendor, nightly between roughly 10 pm and 4 am, for US customers on support. The vendor states they are not designed to replace an existing backup method, are not verified, may not include all data, do not include the image folder, and should be relied on only as a last resort. They need the eConnector running, and to decrypt one the vendor needs the password of the last admin user who logged in.

Switch them on. Then build a real backup beside them.

How does a third-party online backup work with Open Dental?

The vendor's guidance for online backup services is practical.

• What to copy: the mysql\data folder that holds the database, and the OpenDentImages folder.
• The first upload is slow. Quick for the database alone, but as long as a week with many images. Later backups send only what changed.
• The database can stay running. The vendor says backups can safely be made without stopping the database service.
• Restores never go straight onto the live database. Restore to a new location, stop the service, keep a copy of what is there, then put the restored database in place.
• Encrypt it, and test it by restoring to another machine regularly.

The week-long first upload is a real planning constraint. It is started on a Friday evening, watched over the weekend, and not declared done until a restore from the cloud copy opens charts and images.

Where should the offsite copy live?

With a provider whose security can be checked and written into a contract. The state breach statute requires anyone storing personal information for another party to notify that party of a breach in an expeditious manner, and the agreement should turn that into a number of hours and a named contact.

Dublin offices have a local option too. The city's Dublink Transport carries a business's data from its office building to a local carrier-neutral data center at no cost. A backup target in a local data center, reached over that link, can make the first large upload days shorter. It is still a copy that has to be encrypted, monitored and tested.

How is a cloud backup proven?

By pulling it back down. Once a quarter, at minimum, the most recent cloud copy is restored to a computer that is not on the office network, the database service is started, and a few charts and images are opened. The result is written down with the date and which backup was used.

That written record is not busywork. The state Data Protection Act's defense requires a security program designed to protect information against anticipated threats or hazards to its security or integrity, and a failed server, ransomware or a lost office are exactly those hazards. A backup that has never been restored protects against none of them.

What does a restore test actually involve?

The vendor's manual-restore steps are the template. The test machine is a computer not connected to the office network, with the same program and database versions already installed. The database service is stopped, the existing database folder on that machine is renamed rather than overwritten, the backed-up database folder is copied into place without nesting it a level too deep, the image folder is copied alongside, and the service is started again. Then the program opens, and a handful of recent charts and images are checked against the live system.

The most common failure is not a corrupt file. It is a version mismatch: a test machine on an older program version than the backup, or a backup taken from an engine the test machine does not have. Writing down the versions with each test catches that early.

What about the local copy?

The vendor recommends hardware-encrypted drives, where a processor on the drive does the encryption independently of the computer and access is protected by a PIN, and suggests buying a few encrypted drives and rotating them. One stays in the office for fast restores; one is always away from it.

What should the backup schedule look like?

• A daily backup of the database and image folder to a second machine or encrypted drive in the office, for fast restores.
• A daily or more frequent cloud copy, encrypted, held by a provider under contract.
• Supplemental backups switched on as the last resort the vendor describes.
• A restore test each quarter, recorded.
• Retention long enough that a problem found weeks later still has a clean copy before it.

When the server itself is being replaced, the backup is the first thing set up on the new one. The server install page covers that build, and the cloud hosting page covers moving the whole server off site instead.

Questions practices ask

Does the vendor back up the office server?

Not fully. Supplemental backups send some critical data, unverified, without images. The practice's own backup is still required.

How long does the first cloud backup take?

The vendor's own estimate runs from well under a day for the database alone to as long as a week with a large image folder.

Can we back up during the day?

A cloud backup service can copy a running database, per the vendor. The vendor's general backup page recommends running its own backup when nobody else is working in the program.

Is the cloud copy enough on its own?

Keep a local copy too. Pulling a large image folder back down over the internet takes time an office down for the day does not have.