Telsec releases central and remote backup and redundancy features for the mIP and VisorALARM products

The "Alarm Transmission" product line continues its outstanding evolution with contributing value added functionalities that enhance the improvement of quality of services for alarm transmission. 

Until now, the mIP module could be programmed with the IP addresses of the receiver to which the registry, poll or alarm frames are sent. Nevertheless, in cases where a receiver falls, what happens to the mIPs? 

During the time a receiver is out of service, what happens to all the transactions that took place, new mIP registries, state of each mIP, etc.

And, what if the complete system faults and both, main and backup receiver, fall? There are mechanisms to guarantee system uptimes without needing to make complex configurations or waste time with the system setup. 

Telsec has developed a new receiver and mIP firmware with backup support and several levels of redundancy that guarantee the highest availability of the whole system thus solving not only the previous problematic but many others. The intelligent backup and redundancy system allows:

1. The mIP supports configuration for both, main and backup, IP addresses. Initially the mIP will try to send registry, polling and alarm frames to the main receiver. If in a given period the main receiver goes down, the mIP will automatically switch traffic to the backup receiver.
2. All the timers and retry parameters can be independently configured to work differently with each receiver. This feature provides full flexibility when configuring backup and redundancy timings.
3. When the main receiver recovers the mIP detects this and returns to the initial work mode, which means sending registry, poll and alarm frames to the main receiver.
4. Every time the main receiver goes down or comes up, a technical alarm is sent from the receiver to the automation software indicating backup start and return from backup.

Automatic receiver synchronization:

1. The main and backup receivers support an intelligent network protocol, able to synchronize both devices under specific circumstances. This allows the same configuration on both receivers without requiring further configuration or human intervention.
2. The protocols have been developed to allow local network and / or Internet synchronization making the system location independent.
3. Automatic status "normal - backup" management.
   • Backup and return technical alarms.
   • Automatic backup.
   • Automatic return from backup.

Automatic replacement: What happens if both receivers, main and backup fail?

• The VisorALARM receiver has a built-in smart card reader into which you can place a VisorALARM smart card to store both the local configuration and the remote mIP configurations. If inserted, the entire configuration will be automatically stored onto the smart card with information on up to 3.000 mIP modules.
• In a receiver failure situation, and if you have a second receiver in stock, you can replace the defective receiver with the second one. Prior to booting up the new receiver, place the smart card from the defective equipment into the new device smart card reader.  As soon as this device is booted, the entire configuration will have been recovered.

Traditional alarm transmission: In cases where all the previous mechanisms fail, the mIP will switch the line to the alarm panel and the alarms will be sent through PSTN line to the PSTN receiver in traditional alarm panel operations mode.

The backup and redundancy functionalities are available from the beginning of April 2005. You can directly benefit from these versions by downloading them from the TELDAT Website www.teldat.es -> Downloads / Docs -> Software -> Security & Image or from TELDAT Security Website http://www.teldatsecurity.com/ -> Downloads.

These new features are supported in the following firmware releases:

1. VisorALARM  10.5.8 or higher
2. mIP 2.2 or higher (this release is not compatible with VisorALARM releases prior to 10.5.8)