Offline Replication

Offline replication is used to send jobs to destination host with Dynamic address or store that is not online all the time.

When replicating to an offline host, DD at the source host will not try to send job to the destination host. Instead, the job will just wait, with status None. The destination host or Offline host will send a pull request to the source host DD, asking for any jobs waiting for it, and pull them from the Source. This way, the source DD does not need to know the IP Address of the destination host; only the destination host needs to know the source host name or IP address.

The job monitor at the source host will get status update from the offline host as the destination will always be able to send data back to the source.

Note: When sending jobs to Offline locations, the Job Monitor at the source will not be able to send any Re-Check Status requests. The only status update it will get is what the DD at the Offline location will send back, as the request can never make it to the Offline location from the source host.

  1. In the Configuration Tool, activate Offline / Pull Support on all destination hosts that will be pulling jobs from the HO Source.
  2. In the Pull Host field, enter the host name or IP address of the HO Source host. Check Interval is the frequency of how often DD will connect to the HO to check for new jobs.
  3. If the Distribution Server name for the destination host does not fully match the actual host name, you can put in the destination host name in the Host to Pull field. This will be used to look up jobs waiting at HO. This should match the Host name set in the Distribution Location card for the destination.

  4. To let DD send a pull request right away and override the Interval timer, click the Pull Now button. This will start a DDPullMon program that triggers a check for new jobs and also shows the status of the incoming jobs. This program can also be executed directly from the bin folder where DD is installed to trigger a request from, for example, POS.
  5. In Distribution Location setups, for all destination hosts that will be offline, change the Data Director Mode to OFFLINE and type the host path in the Distribution Server Name field. The format for the host path is the host name with the default port number and an :OFF mode ending [STORE3:16860:OFF]

Sending jobs from offline host to source (HO)

If you plan to run Scheduler at the Offline destination host and send jobs to source host or Head Office, or push transactions to HO, HO will not be able to send a status reply back to the offline host, as the IP address is unknown.

As long as the Pull Support is active and HO is set as the Pull Host, DD will modify the job data that is coming from an Offline host.

Job Monitor at the offline host will show the job with status Done and HO destination status as Unknown with information that there will not be any status update for this destination.

Job Monitor at HO will have information about the job processing, if it was successful or not.