Barr EOM

Barr EOM - Failover Printing

Barr EOM features several types of failover printing. The administrator can configure individual failover devices, or groups of printers that back each other up. When a document is submitted, Barr EOM checks the status of the primary or selected output destination device, and if it is not available or returns an error while the document is being printed, Barr EOM automatically reroutes it to the alternate device and notifies the user of the change in destination.

If your company prefers to give more failover control to the user, automatic failover can be disabled or only allowed on certain document types. Instead, the user would be notified when an error occurs and he or she would be presented with a choice of alternate pre-approved devices where the document can be rerouted. Either way, the user will be able to print the document without requiring help from the help desk.

Barr EOM allows you to configure multiple failover profiles for each and every single output device in your environment. The administrator can configure individual failover devices, groups of printers that back each other up. When a document is submitted for output, Barr EOM immediately checks the status of the output destination device. If it is not available or returns an SNMP error code, Barr EOM automatically reroutes it to the alternate device and notifies the user of the change in destination.

If your company prefers to give more failover control to the user, automatic failover can be disabled. Instead, the user would be notified when an error occurs and he or she would be presented with a choice of alternate pre-approved devices where the document can be rerouted. This manual failover option can help administrators quickly move an entire queue of print jobs from multiple users to other printers. Either way, the user will be able to print the document without requiring help from the help desk.

Let’s take a look at some examples of how Failover can work for you.

Known Device Failure, Routine Maintenance, or other Scheduled Event.

There will be times when a printer is scheduled for a firmware upgrade, routine maintenance, cleaning, or other activity that will render it unavailable for a pre-determined amount of time. In this case, a Destination Redirect action would work best.

By right-clicking on the printer name and selecting the Destination Redirect option from the menu, the following dialog will appear:

SNMP Device Error (i.e. – Paper Jam, Out of Toner, etc)

Printer errors are unpredictable but Barr EOM allows you to be proactive about dealing with errors as they come. Since Barr EOM is constantly monitoring your print devices it reacts immediately and without user intervention to redirect your critical reports to another device. The instructions for redirecting your output are stored in the Failover Profile, which is a part of every output device’s configuration setting. (NOTE: Failover Profiles may also be assigned to specific documents, according to your specifications). Any output device’s configuration settings can be accessed by right-clicking on the device name and selecting Configure… from the menu.

Failover Printing Usage Scenario

User Scenario – Production Print

In the typical production print shop there are many times where the volume of pages in a print job can be in the tens of thousands. While the hardware used can easily accommodate that volume of output there are many times when the operators of these systems are caught by surprise due to hardware issues that they were unaware of. Once the instruction to print a job is sent to the device, many times the next contact the operator will have with the printer is to unload the printed output and to send the next job to the printer.

Unfortunately printers do occasionally have problems and without an output management system that can monitor for problems, automatically re-route the job to another capable device, and prevent costly back-ups and potentially missed deadlines, the stakes can be high.

Barr EOM is such a product. The Failover Printing feature built into the I/Omation platform upon which EOM is built, is user customizable so that any time there is an error that causes an interruption in the completion of a print job the system can reroute that job to another compatible printer. The user can define whether or not to do this without user intervention or to simple notify the user so that the decision of how to deal with the problem can be made.

Barr EOM can not only automatically redirect the job to another device but it can send a notification to the operator telling him, or her, what has happened. These notifications along with the uninterrupted printing of critical documents combine to improve productivity and ultimately save money.