RightFax cloud migrations succeed or fail long before cutover day. Here’s how to set yourself up for a successful migration from discovery through go-live.
Yes. RightFax runs on virtual machines hosted in AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud Platform. OpenText explicitly supports all three vendors. The architecture is the same: Windows Server, SQL Server, and the RightFax application stack, now running on cloud VMs instead of on-prem hardware.
This guide walks through the full migration lifecycle: deciding how to move, planning the work, managing the telecom transition, and monitoring the environment after cutover.
Bear in mind that OpenText itself does not offer RightFax as a managed cloud service, so deployment is a customer or partner responsibility. If you want the benefits of cloud infrastructure without managing it yourself, that’s where Private Fax Cloud® comes in. It’s a fully managed RightFax deployment on private cloud infrastructure, pre-configured with best practices developed over years of healthcare and enterprise deployments.
Most migrations are triggered by infrastructure pressure rather than any dissatisfaction with RightFax itself. Common forcing functions are hardware approaching or past end-of-life, datacenter exits driven by lease expirations or cloud-first mandates, and EHR modernization projects—Epic, Oracle Health (Cerner), MEDITECH, Veradigm (Allscripts)—that force a fresh look at every integration dependency, including fax.
DR gaps and compliance pressure are also common contributors. A single on-prem fax server with no DR plan is a single point of failure, and HIPAA, SOC 2, and similar frameworks increasingly expect documented controls that cloud environments make easier to demonstrate and audit. IT staffing is a factor too: when the team that built the fax environment has moved on, a managed cloud deployment is often a more sustainable path than maintaining deep in-house RightFax expertise.
Rushed or incomplete discovery is the most common reason migrations run into trouble at cutover. The goal is a clear picture of what you have before you decide what to do with it.
RightFax and server versions. Confirm your current RightFax version, Windows Server version, and SQL Server version. RightFax currently supports Windows Server 2019 and 2022, and SQL Server 2019–2022 (Enterprise, Standard, or Express editions). If your environment is running older versions, an upgrade may need to precede the cloud migration.
Channels and volume. How many fax channels are active, and what is peak concurrency? This determines VM sizing. Fax volume by direction (inbound vs. outbound), by department, and by integration point tells you where the operational risk is concentrated.
Telecom. Document your current connectivity — analog lines, T1/PRI, or existing FoIP — along with carrier contracts and any porting constraints. This becomes critical in the telecom planning phase.
Fax number inventory. List every DID/DDI range in use, which departments or systems they serve, and whether they appear in external-facing materials, referral workflows, or regulatory documentation.
Integrations. Which systems connect to RightFax, and how? EHR platforms, document management solutions, multifunction printers, line-of-business applications, and any custom scripting or scheduled jobs all need to be documented. Surprises often emerge from integrations that were configured years ago and are no longer well understood.
Storage. How much fax image data exists, and what are the retention requirements? OpenText estimates approximately 35KB per page for fax image storage planning.
Stakeholder map. A migration touches more teams than IT. Before design work begins, identify and engage: IT infrastructure and networking, telecom, compliance and privacy officers, clinical informatics or operations leads (for healthcare), and the business application owners for each integrated system.
Discovery outputs. By the end of discovery, you should have a current-state architecture diagram, an integration dependency map, a full fax number and channel inventory, and a first-draft risk register. These become the foundation for architecture decisions and migration planning.
How you run RightFax in the cloud depends on how much internal capacity you have to manage it. There are three practical models.
RightFax installed on a VM in AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud, managed entirely by your team. You own the OS patching, RightFax application updates, backup schedules, and DR configuration. This model offers the most flexibility and the most overhead. It suits organizations with mature cloud operations and complex customization requirements that need direct control of every layer.
Private Fax Cloud is a managed RightFax deployment on private cloud infrastructure configured and maintained by our team. Monitoring, patching, telecom, and support are included. It’s designed for healthcare and other regulated organizations that want the operational benefits of cloud, but with faster go-live, and without a dedicated internal team.
On-prem RightFax infrastructure is retained for some workloads, with cloud handling DR, overflow, or remote sites. Hybrid is useful during phased migrations or where specific integrations require on-prem proximity.
Before selecting an architecture, work through these questions:
Telecom is consistently the most underestimated and operationally disruptive part of a cloud fax migration. On-prem RightFax deployments typically use analog lines, T1/PRI circuits, or fax boards, whereas virtual RightFax servers cannot use fax boards at all. In practice, cloud deployments use SIP trunking or cloud fax gateways. Cloud Connect provides a supported path for hybrid faxing between RightFax and cloud telephony infrastructure.
A few tips to minimize roadblocks during telecom planning:
The HIPAA Security Rule requires administrative, physical, and technical safeguards for electronic PHI whether stored locally or in the cloud. For a RightFax cloud deployment, the practical requirements are: a signed BAA with every vendor that handles PHI — including the cloud provider and any managed service partner — plus encryption in transit and at rest, role-based access controls, and audit logging configured and validated before cutover.
SOC 2 Type II, PCI-DSS, and GLBA share core concerns: audit trails, encryption, access controls, and data residency. Confirm cloud region selection against your compliance requirements before provisioning — it’s disruptive to change later. The underlying questions are consistent across frameworks: who can access fax data, is that access logged, where does it reside, and for how long.
A phased approach reduces risk. Each phase creates the conditions for the next, typically unfolding as follows.
Phase 1 — Discovery and design. Inventory the current environment, map integration dependencies, engage stakeholders, and select the target architecture. Typical outputs: current-state diagram, integration map, number inventory, and risk register.
Phase 2 — Build and configure. Provision the cloud infrastructure (VM, networking, storage, backup policy). Install and configure RightFax. Configure SIP trunking or Cloud Connect for fax transmission. Replicate integration configurations from the on-prem environment.
Phase 3 — Parallel testing. Run the cloud environment alongside on-prem without routing production traffic to it. Test each integration end-to-end. Run load tests against expected peak channel concurrency. Complete security and compliance validation.
Phase 4 — Pilot cutover. Port a subset of fax numbers — ideally a lower-risk department — to the cloud environment. Monitor for two to four weeks: delivery rates, queue behavior, integration error rates, call quality. Resolve issues before expanding scope.
Phase 5 — Full cutover. Complete number porting. Update runbooks, DR plans, and vendor contacts. Decommission or repurpose on-prem hardware, or retain it for hybrid use if warranted.
Phase 6 — Post-migration monitoring. The first several weeks on cloud infrastructure are the most likely to surface issues that testing didn’t catch. Watch fax delivery success rates (inbound and outbound separately), channel utilization at peak, queue depth, and integration error rates. Confirm retention policies are enforcing storage limits, and establish a patching cadence before it slips. RightFax’s built-in reporting covers transmission and queue status, which can be supplemented with your cloud provider’s monitoring tools. Configure alerting for both layers before cutover, not after.
These are the failure modes that appear most often in practice.
The right migration path depends on what’s running in your environment today: RightFax version, integration depth, fax volume, and how much internal capacity you have to manage cloud infrastructure on an ongoing basis. For healthcare organizations in particular, the EHR integration and number porting plan deserve careful attention before any cutover timeline is set.
If you’d like help scoping the work, contact us for a migration review. If you’d rather hand off the infrastructure entirely, Private Fax Cloud is a fully managed RightFax deployment designed for exactly this: HIPAA-ready, pre-configured, and typically live within a week.