Technical Note: 20000918004

Installing Emergency Backup on Windows POS

(Maitre'D Millennium, and later versions of Maitre'D)
Emergency Backup for Windows POS provides security. The Emergency Backup will add more security to your network by including full redundancy of the Maitre'D Back-Office software on any POS terminal in your network. Another computer on the network could also be setup to act as a Emergency Backup.
Example: For any reason the Main Back-Office Server goes down and is no longer available to manage your network, with a few keystrokes your designated Emergency Backup will take over and in a matter of seconds will become a fully operational Back-Office for the rest of your workstations.
This document gives instructions to install a Emergency Backup on one of the workstation. Skip the workstation installation section if you want to install the Emergency Backup on another computer on the network.

Minimum System Requirements:

Note: These specifications are for Maitre'D Millennium only. If you are using a later version, refer to the M.S.R. of the Main Back-Office Server for that version.

Step by step to install the Emergency Backup

Login to Maitre'D network

Install Windows workstation program

  1. Install Maitre'D Backup server program
  2. Redo workstation data

Login to Maitre'D network

The usual network components and setting must be installed before you can use this computer as a Backup server. To assist you about connecting this terminal to the network, refer to the Installation guide.

Install the Windows workstation program

If you want to have one of your workstations to act as an Emergency Backup, you must install the workstation program first. To install the Windows workstation program, please refer to the Windows workstation installation instructions. When the workstations application is up and running, use a manager employee to close the POS from FUNCTION button / MANAGER MENU, SPECIAL FUNCTION / CLOSE POS option.

Install Maitre'D Emergency Backup program

From the Windows Desktop, double click on the Network Neighborhood icon and browse the network to access the autorun.exe program on Maitre'D CD-Rom. (To access the installation program, the CD-ROM drive must be shared on the main server).
When the Maitre'D Installation screen displays, select "Install Back-Office and Point Of Sale" .

To install the Emergency Backup program, select "Install Backup Server".

Note: If you are not installing from a CD, but from a downloaded version, Run the installation from a DOS Command Prompt. Navigate to the disk1 directory, and type the following command;

Setup.Exe Backup

Click "Next" on the Emergency Backup welcome screen to start the Backup server installation.

The setup program installs the Maitre'D Back-Office directories in the following default directory C:\POSERA\MAITRED. This default value is used for the Program root, Data root and Backup root. To accept this path, click on "Next" and the installation program will create the following directories: C:\POSERA\MAITRED\PRG C:\POSERA\MAITRED\DATA and C:\POSERA\MAITRED\BACKUP.
Then you need to specify the computer running your Maitre'D Back-Office Main Server. Select from the list your Main Back-Office computer on the network.
Note: If you are installing the Emergency Backup on another PC on your network, the following screen display asking you about a user ID that is used to access the Back-Office. Enter a different number from 1 to 31 for each Emergency Backup you are installing on your network.
When the installation is complete, you will be prompted to shut down and restart the terminal.
 

Once the system has rebooted, you will need to license the program. Follow these steps:

  1. Enter the serial number and the commerce name printed on the CD-ROM case or on your invoice provided by Posera. Click next to continue.
  2. The system will prompt to the request key code screen , read the message and print the form that you will email to support@posera.com or fax to Posera at (514)499-9951 attention of support. Click next.
  3. Enter the key code number provides by Posera , click next to continue.
  4. A congratulation message will show, then click yes to finish the installation process and to restart your computer.
  5. Once and your on your Windows shell, the Software asks to update the database, click on "Proceed". Maitre'D will convert the database automatically. Once the update is completed, you will notice a Maitre'D Server icon installed in your task bar.
Also from the installation, a new icon is added to the desktop as an Auxiliary Back-Office access. You can use this shortcut to reach the Back-Office program.
Note: If you are installing the Emergency Backup on another PC on your network, you must create this shortcut, defined as follows;
Program: C:\Posera\MaitreD\Prg\Starter.exe
Startup Directory: C:\Posera\MaitreD\Data

Recreate Workstation data

From the Main Back-Office Server, redo all the Windows workstation data. This will automatically restart the workstations program with the Backup server parameters inserted in their booting sequence.
Note: If using a DOS Workstation, to add the Backup server parameters to the booting sequence, you must create a new boot disk for all DOS POS on your network. This is no longer supported by Maitre'D 2005.

Start Emergency procedures

When the Main Back-Office is no longer available to your network, workstations try to connect to the current Back-Office server and after few seconds will try to restart the workstations program. From that start workstation program, the Backup server will propose to start the Backup server procedure.

Select "START LOCAL BACK SERVER" to start the Backup server procedure.

Before Maitre'D starts the Backup server operation, you are prompt to enter a different password.
This password works with current date on the computer. You need to add the date digits together and enter the results as the password. This procedure is to prevent employee's to start emergency server procedure involuntarily.
Examples of password to provide.
Let's presume that the current date on this PC is: September 25, 2001
Year 20 01
Month, day 09 25
Total 29 26
password 2926

 

Let's presume that the current date on this PC is: November 15, 2001
Year 20 01
Month, day 11 15
Total 31 16
password 3116

 

Enter this password to start the Backup server procedure.

What Backup server procedure do

Updates the local program directory with current data information.
Reconstructs the current day using the electronic transaction journal (MEMOIRE.DAT).
Redoes automatically all workstation data
All workstations on the network try to reach a main Back-Office server or Backup Back-Office server. In this setup, they first try to reach the computer named MAITRED to access the program, if it is not available, the workstations will try to reach a computer named WS03 to access the program. When the Backup server finishes the emergency procedure, it will then be available to all workstations as the current Main server.

Restore Main Back-Office server

Even if the program supports it, for operational reasons, it is not recommended to restore the Main Back-Office server in the middle of the day. When you are ready to bring back the Main Back-Office server, the following procedure must be followed:

Step by Step to restore Main server

Login the New Main server to Maitre'D network

The usual network components and settings must be installed before you can use the computer as the main server. To assist you about connecting this computer to the network, please refer to the appropriate section on this document. Same Maitre'D software and service pack must be installed on the New Main server. A little test to make sure that the computer is back on the network; double click on the Network Neighborhood icon.

Start the Main server restoration procedure

The Main Server restoration should be done by a Maitre'D certified technician. Close all workstations on the network except the Backup server. From the Backup Server, under Server Control / File menu, select RESTORE MAIN SERVER option.
The Backup server will transfer all the needed information to bring the New Main server as the current Main Maitre'D server on the network. Then it will change its status to Backup server again.
From the New Main Back-Office server, files will be updated with current data information and all workstations data is regenerated automatically. At the end of the restoration procedure, a message will prompt you saying that the Control File was updated. Click "OK" to finish the restoration.
Start all workstations, shut down and restart the Backup server.