Guide to Viedoc server instances

  • Published by Viedoc System 2024-10-10
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This lesson is intended as a guide for which production instance to use. We recommend using your training instance in the same region as the production instance you plan to use.

Technical Overview

Viedoc maintains server instances in Europe, Japan, China and the US. Each region has a primary server as well as a redundancy. They are served out of two Microsoft Azure regions as follows: The US instances are in US West and US East. The European instances use France Central and France South, the Japanese instances use Japan East and Japan West , and the mainland China instances use China North and China South. These locations are chosen for connectivity and privacy regulation purposes.

Region capabilities

Each region has a training and a production instance for your studies.

When a production study is added in Viedoc, it is added within an organisation in one of the four production instances. We recommend that the entire study should use the chosen production instance, but this is not an absolute must. It is possible to run different studies on different instances.

Certain regions have alternate capabilities which use different sub-processors. You can find out more here: Service Status.

Note! Viedoc Connect is disabled on the Chinese instances.

For a more in-depth technical description, please see Viedoc Technical Description.

Available Viedoc Instances

Note! Sometimes there may be a need to work on several servers for reasons such as the following:

  • To maintain multiple Viedoc accounts
  • Due to connectivity issues in China
  • Due to a study design in multiple languages, such as Japanese or Chinese
  • Due to concerns about mainatianing GDPR compliance

See also Navigating GDPR for Clinical Trials for more information about GDPR for clinical trials.

A short summary of the available Viedoc instances is listed below.

    • US Instances
      • Recommended for: The US instance is always recommended when a US sponsor runs trials using US sites. It can also be used for sponsors and sites located outside of the US, for example: Australia or South America.
      • Response times are very short for the entire western world. Users accessing the US instance from within China might experience a lag time, and this lag could be considerable from time to time.
      • Production: https://v4.viedoc.net
      • Training: https://v4training.viedoc.net
    • EU Instances
      • The EU instance is always recommended when European sponsors run trials using European sites. It can also be used when sponsors and sites involved are neither from US, Europe, China or Japan (e.g. for studies run in Australia or the Middle East).

Note! The EU instance is recommended for customers that must maintain GDPR compliance.

    • JP Instances
      • The JP instance is always recommended when Japanese sponsors are running studies using Japanese sites. It can also be used when sponsors and sites involved are neither from US, Europe, China or Japan (e.g. for studies run in Australia or South East Asia).

Note! This instance is recommended for customers that must maintain APPI compliance.

    • CN instance
      • The CN instance is always recommended when Chinese sponsors are running studies using Chinese sites.

Note! This instance is recommended for customers that must maintain compliance with HGR and PIPL.​​​

More information on managing studies in China can be found here: Managing studies in China.

Viedoc WCF API

For connecting your development environment or any other system to the Viedoc public web service using the Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) standards, use the following:

For the EU:

https://v4api.viedoc.net/HelipadService.svc?wsdl
https://v4apitraining.viedoc.net/HelipadService.svc?wsdl

For Japan:

https://v4apijp.viedoc.net/HelipadService.svc?wsdl
https://v4apitrainingjp.viedoc.net/HelipadService.svc?wsdl
https://v4apistagejp.viedoc.net/HelipadService.svc?wsdl

For China:

https://api.viedoc.cn/HelipadService.svc?wsdl
https://apitraining.viedoc.cn/HelipadService.svc?wsdl

For the USA:

https://api.us.viedoc.com/HelipadService.svc?wsdl
https://apitraining.us.viedoc.com/HelipadService.svc?wsdl

Data Protection Impact Assessment

It is important to know that when transferring data from one region to another you will need to comply with the local data privacy legislation, for example:

  • Transferring data from the EU to another region, GDPR must be considered.
  • Transferring data from JP to another region, APPI must be considered.
  • Transferring data from CN to another region, HGR and PIPL must be considered.
  • More information can be found here: Data Protection Impact Assessment.

Choosing your instance

  • Grouping your studies
    • For some studies, it will be clear which instance to use while other situations might present more challenges. When you encounter a challenging situation, we recommend grouping your studies to the extent it is possible to do so. For example, if most of your studies run on the EU instance, we recommend that you run new studies on the EU instances, as well. If you are planning your first Viedoc study, then we recommend using an instance where you expect you'll conduct most of your future studies.
    • If a study involves sites from multiple regions, we recommend that you choose an instance based on where the majority of the sites are located

Using several instances for the same study

It is not possible to share a study between instances, but it is possible to run a separate study on an alternate instance. Doing so present some things to be considered:

  • Settings in Admin and the global design settings in Viedoc designer will need to be remade for the alternate study.
  • User management and user account setup will be separate for the alternate study
  • You will not be able to combine data from both studies in Viedoc Suite applications like: Reports or export.
  • When reviewing data for the entire trial (on all instances) you will need to export data from both studies and merge the data offline (e.g. in SAS) or in another system. This process can be made easier by using the same CRF design version where all IDs are identical for the studies.
  • It is possible to use different languages on item labels in the two studies, so if the item IDs are identical you can have item labels in Chinese on Chinese instances and English labels on US instances.

Recommendations from Viedoc

Below we have listed a few scenarios advising on which instances we would recommend using.

  • US sponsor - EU sites
    • Use the EU instance because all sites are in the EU.
  • EU sponsor - US sites
    • Use the US instance because all sites are in the US.
  • JP sponsor - US sites
    • Use the US instance because all sites are in the US.
  • SA sponsor - AU sites
    • Use the EU, US, or Japanese instances as all are a suitable fit.
  • CN sponsor - US and EU sites
    • Use the EU or US instance, or whichever has the majority of the sites.
  • EU sponsor - EU and US sites
    • Use the EU instance
  • US sponsor - EU, US, CN, and JP sites
    • Use EU, US, JP, or CN instances

FAQ

  • If a study has been initiated on one instance, can it be moved to another instance later?
    • It is not possible to move studies across instances. The study remains on the instance that it started on until it is either locked or purged.
  • As a customer, am I allowed to use different instances for different studies?
    • Yes! During the WI stage, you will specify which instance you want to run your study on. If a sponsor is running some of their studies in the US and some in China, we recommend using the instance that is most suitable for each study.