Introduction
The National Electronic Disease Surveillance System (NEDSS) Base System (NBS) is a CDC-developed disease surveillance system that health departments use to manage reportable disease data. NBS 7 is the modernized version of the platform, designed for deployment and operation on cloud-based infrastructure. This documentation supports the administration lifecycle for NBS 7, including planning, deployment, validation, and maintenance.
The content in this guide reflects NBS 7.13. For procedures from earlier releases, see Previous Versions in the sidebar. Each NBS 7 release supports specific NBS 6 versions. Before you begin any deployment or upgrade, verify that your NBS 6 version is supported for your target NBS 7 version on the Supported NBS versions page.
Purpose and scope
The NBS 7 System Administration guide helps you prepare for NBS 7, deploy the platform, validate that it is working correctly, and maintain it over time. It brings together operational guidance for system administration tasks across the NBS 7 lifecycle.
In this guide
This guide covers the full NBS 7 administration lifecycle in three main parts:
- Before you deploy NBS 7 covers readiness checks and pre-deployment planning.
- Deploy NBS 7 covers infrastructure, microservices, and deployment validation steps.
- Maintain NBS 7 covers post-deployment administration and maintenance tasks.
The guide also includes supplementary reference materials, such as the glossary and support resources.
Intended audience
The primary audience is system administrators at state, tribal, local, and territorial (STLT) health departments who install, operate, and maintain NBS 7. The content assumes familiarity with your cloud platform, Kubernetes, Terraform, Helm, and related administration tasks.
Runtime environment support
NBS 7 supports AWS and Microsoft Azure as runtime options. The platform uses a cloud-agnostic approach, and the deployment content includes guidance for both supported providers. NBS 7 runs on Kubernetes and relies on tools such as Terraform, and Helm to provision and manage infrastructure and services. You need administrator-level access to your runtime environment and a local system with required prerequisites installed.
Additional resources
For more information on NBS, see the official CDC National Electronic Disease Surveillance System Base System (NBS) website and NBS Central, the community hub for NBS users where you can download software, access technical resources, and participate in user group calls.
Access to NBS Central requires a login. To register for an NBS Central account, choose Register at the top of the login screen.