Illustrative exampleHealth & Wellness / Veterinary Clinics

A vet clinic's Saturday surgery list, back forty minutes after the server died

The clinic's backup had been quietly skipping its database for fourteen months. We found that in week one, fixed it, and added a standby server that took over the following November.

This shows the kind of work we do. It is not a client engagement, and the business in it is invented.

Where it started

The problem

The practice-management software ran on a server in the back office, next to the X-ray processor. Appointments, medical histories, vaccine records and the controlled-drug log all lived in one database on one disk array.

There was a backup. Nobody had tried restoring it. When we did, as part of taking the clinic on, it failed: the job had been skipping the database files for fourteen months because they were always open.

What changed

What we did

We fixed the backup before touching anything else. Hourly application-aware snapshots run while the clinic is open, with a copy shipped off site. Once a month we restore one and actually open it.

Then a second, smaller server went into a different room, kept in sync and ready to take over.

It earned its place in November. A disk controller failed at 8:10 on a Saturday with a full surgery list booked, and by 8:50 the clinic was working from the standby.

Both machines are watched under a monthly contract, which includes patching on Wednesday nights while the clinic is shut.

Built with

  • Veeam Backup & Replication
  • Windows Server 2022
  • Hyper-V
  • Backblaze B2

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