Cloud CPRS: VA Enterprise Cloud provides CPRS as a web application for telemedicine

140 views
Skip to first unread message

rrichards

unread,
Jul 3, 2020, 4:19:33 PM7/3/20
to Hardhats
FYI:

In response to the need to enhance remote access to VistA/CPRS for telehealth services, VA is migrating VistA thick clients (such as CPRS) to the VA Enterprise Cloud (VAEC;  a rebranding of AWS services in the U.S. GovCloud).  From the VAEC CPRS is streamed as  a Web application to any VHA clinician, anywhere, on any device,  with any webkit-based browser (Safari, Chrome, Firefox, Edge).

This leverages the Amazon Application Streaming service:

We have tested AppStream CPRS across all five time zones of the VA. All functions of CPRS work, including remote data views and Tools Menu items.

The performance is as fast as or faster than CPRS running on VA workstations within VA facilities.

When Cloud CPRS is connected to a Cloud VistA instance (an instance of VistA migrated to the VAEC), all the legacy VA networking infrastructure that RPCs must traverse (routers, gateways, etc) disappears, and performance of CPRS-VistA is at the speed of light.  TIU notes that took up to 28 seconds to load are loading in under 1.4 seconds (a 2000% performance improvement).

More to come.

Rafael



Nancy Anthracite

unread,
Jul 3, 2020, 4:38:36 PM7/3/20
to hard...@googlegroups.com, rrichards

Glad to hear it as that initially was not the case. I suspect that improvements in bandwidth instituted for Telehealth and to support Cerner are also contributing.

 

--

Nancy Anthracite

--
--
http://groups.google.com/group/Hardhats
To unsubscribe, send email to Hardhats+u...@googlegroups.com

---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Hardhats" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to hardhats+u...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/hardhats/fe257fff-a211-436f-a2e3-81d22b7c82e4o%40googlegroups.com.



rrichards

unread,
Jul 3, 2020, 4:53:52 PM7/3/20
to Hardhats
The Cloud CPRS project has no relationship to infrastructure upgrades required for Cerner.

Cloud VistA / Cloud CPRS is a cloud-native migration and implementation of VistA/CPRS. 
The performance improvements described were with zero changes to VistA code, CPRS code, or to any
VA hardware, systems, networks, or workstations.

The Cerner project requires an upgrade to hardware, routers, gateways,  networking, and an upgrade of all of the
400,000 Windows workstations across VA to new Windows 10 workstations.

In other words: Leveraging the Cloud infrastructure avoids spending $6 B on upgrading legacy VA infrastructure.







On Friday, July 3, 2020 at 4:38:36 PM UTC-4, Nancy Anthracite wrote:

Glad to hear it as that initially was not the case. I suspect that improvements in bandwidth instituted for Telehealth and to support Cerner are also contributing.

 

--

Nancy Anthracite

 

On Friday, July 3, 2020 4:19:33 PM EDT rrichards wrote:

FYI:


In response to the need to enhance remote access to VistA/CPRS for telehealth services, VA is migrating VistA thick clients (such as CPRS) to the VA Enterprise Cloud (VAEC;  a rebranding of AWS services in the U.S. GovCloud).  From the VAEC CPRS is streamed as  a Web application to any VHA clinician, anywhere, on any device,  with any webkit-based browser (Safari, Chrome, Firefox, Edge).


This leverages the Amazon Application Streaming service:

https://aws.amazon.com/appstream2/


We have tested AppStream CPRS across all five time zones of the VA. All functions of CPRS work, including remote data views and Tools Menu items.


The performance is as fast as or faster than CPRS running on VA workstations within VA facilities.


When Cloud CPRS is connected to a Cloud VistA instance (an instance of VistA migrated to the VAEC), all the legacy VA networking infrastructure that RPCs must traverse (routers, gateways, etc) disappears, and performance of CPRS-VistA is at the speed of light.  TIU notes that took up to 28 seconds to load are loading in under 1.4 seconds (a 2000% performance improvement).


More to come.


Rafael






---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Hardhats" group.

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to hardhats+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.

Nancy Anthracite

unread,
Jul 3, 2020, 5:01:27 PM7/3/20
to hard...@googlegroups.com, rrichards

I don't see how you can say there is no relationship when you still have to get to the cloud through a network so bandwidth does matter. Where were you testing this that you can be so sure your infrastructure was not improved?

 

--

Nancy Anthracite

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to hardhats+u...@googlegroups.com.



---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Hardhats" group.

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to hardhats+u...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/hardhats/3c425620-0cb1-431c-a722-2bcaef2c0313o%40googlegroups.com.



rrichards

unread,
Jul 3, 2020, 5:18:11 PM7/3/20
to Hardhats
Both VistA and CPRS are hosted in the AWS Cloud, and the networking is all within the AWS cloud.

The only thing that has to traverse the network to an end user is a web streaming protocol that transmits pixels.  No data is transmitted.
It is much more lightweight than transmitting RPCs.
It is the same protocol used to protocol used for Netflix  (AWS is Netflix's provider)

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to hardhats+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.


To unsubscribe, send email to Hard...@googlegroups.com

---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Hardhats" group.

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to hardhats+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.

ivaldes

unread,
Jul 3, 2020, 10:09:45 PM7/3/20
to Hardhats
Yes Astro-CPRS has had similar performance improvements for years now. We haven't deployed thick clients to end users for years. Our entire infrastructure and client software have been all cloud and browser based for a long time now. We also have gone well beyond that with tweaks in the user interface making it tablet performance friendly. We will not be going back to thick client deployment ever.
Reply all
Reply to author
Forward
0 new messages