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SubClik

Backup agent (takes over when the main one stops)

An extra computer with the agent at the same customer and site stands by and reads the main agent's printers when the main agent has been out of touch for 30 minutes, so meters and alerts keep coming.

Where: Customers & machines › Printer monitoring › Agents › Settings and actionsFor Owners, admins, dispatchers

Step by step

  1. Install the agent on an extra computer that stays on at the same customer and site, on the same network as the main agent. It must not read printers of its own. The main agent can be a computer or a SubClik Box; the backup must be a computer.
  2. Open Agents, then Settings and actions of the second agent. Under Backup for choose the main agent and press Save backup.
  3. The second agent shows Backup · standing by. Nothing else to do.

What happens

While the main agent is in touch (it asks the portal every minute), the backup reads nothing and anything it sends about printers is ignored, so nothing is counted twice.

When the main agent has not been in touch for 30 minutes, the backup takes over within a minute or two: it is given the main agent's network ranges, communities and printer addresses, reads the meters straight away and then checks toner and errors as the main agent would. What it reads goes into the same printers, with the same machine links, history and meters. Each meter keeps one reading a day, so a read the main agent already sent that day is not counted again.

The agent shows Reading for … while it covers. Requests from the portal (read now, diagnostic) for those printers go to the backup. The daily email still says the main agent is silent, and that its backup is reading its printers.

When the main agent is back, the backup stands by again. Starts and ends are kept in the audit log.

Limits

One backup per agent, at the same customer and site; a backup cannot have a backup of its own. Removing the main agent makes its backup an ordinary agent again.

While it stands by, the backup refuses Read now and network searches: the main agent does those.

The backup must be able to reach the printers: on another network, it reads only what it can reach. A main agent that is in touch but cannot reach its printers (e.g. a network change) does not hand over; it shows a problem instead.

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