OpenMRS EMR Platform on Azure

Deploy a Production-Ready OpenMRS Electronic Medical Record System on Microsoft Azure

Deploy a production-ready OpenMRS electronic medical record (EMR) system on Microsoft Azure in minutes. Built for clinics, NGOs, global health programmes and research organisations that need one of the world's most widely deployed open-source EMR platforms without days of Java, Tomcat and database configuration. This image ships the current stable OpenMRS 3 platform and modern frontend on a CIS-aligned, hardened Linux operating system.

Why OpenMRS, and Why This Image

OpenMRS powers patient records for healthcare systems in more than forty countries and supports some of the world's largest HIV, tuberculosis and primary healthcare programmes. It is highly modular, supports healthcare interoperability standards through FHIR modules and is backed by a large international implementation community.

Deploying OpenMRS correctly requires compatible versions of Java, Apache Tomcat, MariaDB and OpenMRS itself. This image resolves those dependencies, delivers a production-ready deployment and provides documentation so implementation teams can focus on clinical workflows, forms and reporting instead of infrastructure.

What You Get Out of the Box

• Current stable OpenMRS 3 platform and frontend with a validated version matrix for Java, Apache Tomcat and MariaDB.
• MariaDB preconfigured with the OpenMRS database schema using UTF8MB4 throughout.
• Automated daily backup scripts for both the database and application data, with configurable retention policies.

Common Use Cases

• Clinics and Hospital Departments – Manage patient registration, encounters, visits, clinical orders and reporting.
• NGOs and Global Health Programmes – Deploy multi-site healthcare systems with community-supported modules and offline-capable workflows.
• Research and Academic Institutions – Capture structured clinical data for research, analytics and reporting.
• Training Environments – Create disposable EMR environments for clinical informatics education and demonstrations.
• Evaluation Projects – Assess OpenMRS on infrastructure you control without software licensing costs.

Compliance: Read This Before Storing Patient Data

A virtual machine image cannot make a healthcare deployment compliant. Compliance depends on operational controls, organisational processes and the secure configuration of your Azure environment. This image provides a hardened starting point together with documentation covering the remaining shared responsibilities.

• Use Azure managed disk encryption and encrypted backups.
• Deploy resources within private Azure Virtual Networks wherever practical.
• Restrict access using Network Security Groups, Azure Firewall or VPN connectivity.
• Never expose the MariaDB service directly to the public Internet.
• Implement audit logging, secure backup handling and appropriate access controls for healthcare data.

Sizing Guidance

OpenMRS is a Java-based application and benefits from sufficient memory for the JVM, particularly when supporting multiple users or running reporting workloads.

• Evaluation and training: Standard_D4s_v5 (4 vCPU, 16 GB RAM)
• Single-facility production deployment: Standard_D4s_v5 (4 vCPU, 16 GB RAM) with Premium SSD managed disks and encryption enabled.
• Multi-site deployments or reporting-intensive environments: Standard_D8s_v5 (8 vCPU, 32 GB RAM) with Azure Database for MariaDB or MySQL where appropriate, as documented in the deployment guide.

Trademark Notice

OpenMRS® is a registered trademark of OpenMRS Inc. This product is independently packaged and maintained and is not affiliated with or endorsed by OpenMRS Inc. or the OpenMRS community.