Each task in Patriot should be configured with a duplicate backup task, to take over when running on the backup server. See Failover Procedures for more information on switching to the backup server.
Ensure that the backup server is only running Patriot when the primary server is offline. Don't allow the primary and backup tasks to run at the same time.
The backup task should have an identical task type and settings to the primary task, with a few exceptions:
Description: This should identify the task as a backup, e.g. Ademco Receiver (Backup).
Computer: This should be set to the backup server.
Backup: This option should be enabled for backup tasks only. This option tells Patriot to ignore errors with this task when the primary server is running normally.
Ideally the primary and backup servers should have identical COM port assignments, to make the failover process easier. However if this is not possible, update the COM port setting on the backup task to match the physical port which the task device/receiver will be connected to. The other serial settings such as Baud, Parity etc. should be identical to the primary task.
Messaging tasks have an additional backup setting, for the Primary Task. This should be set to the main task that will be running on the primary server. When running on the backup server, the backup messaging task will process messages assigned to the primary task. It is especially important for messaging tasks that only one copy (primary OR backup) is running at a time to prevent messages being processed multiple times.
If you have multiple backup servers, such as an off-site backup / disaster recovery location, repeat the above steps for each backup server, to add additional backup tasks as needed.
In this example, we have one receiver, and an email task configured.
Primary receiver task, on primary PATRIOT server
First we add a duplicate for each task, copying the same settings except for the key settings above. Notice that the COM port is different due to hardware differences on the backup server.
New backup tasks added for backup PATBACKUP server
In the email task, we set the Primary Task setting so that the backup task will process any emails for the primary task.
Backup Messaging task has primary messaging task configured