NCR Counterpoint and Power Failure Recovery
With the onset of fall and winter storms comes the distinct possibility that your business will experience a some sort of power related event that will cause you both inconvenience and irritation.
Some rather common complaints after a power event, and the likely causes are:
- There is no Internet access. – The Internet could be down, or routers and network switches at the site may need to be power-cycled.
- The NCR Counterpoint Client workstations cannot connect the Counterpoint server. – The Counterpoint server may not be not be up or certain required services may not be running.
- Automated End of Day posting and Credit Card Settlements did not run. – If the power was down during the frame that the task is normally, run. In this case authorized users can post and settle their previous transactions manually.
- Register based peripheral devices no longer function of do not function properly (e.g. Receipt
- printers don’t print; cash drawers don’t kick; external pole displays don’t show data or update, etc,) – the devices could be damaged, of that they were not connected or turned on when the register was restarted.
- External backups fail – External hard drive may be damaged power supplies, or were not powered-up when or after the server was restarted.
- If in a multi-store environment, Multi-Site replication may have been affected – meaning that part or none of the data between sites may not be updating, of updating properly. – since there are a number of issues at play here, either your MIS person, or CCS Should be contacted to resolve these kinds of issues.
Equipment Protection.
All critical computer related equipment (Servers, Registers, Back Office PC’s, External Backup devices, Routers, Switches, and Modems) and sensitive equipment (PDT’s, scanners) should be properly protected against power surges by a UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply). Minimally, all non-essential equipment should be protected by quality surge protect (This could include Report Printers, Receipt Printers, Label Printers, etc.).
Power Failure Shutdown Procedures
Normally, the following is a correct procedural step process for shutting things down during a power failure are:
1. Log all users out of NCR Counterpoint.
2. Shutdown the your servers.
3. Shutdown the back office PC’s and Registers.
4. Turn off of any register peripherals that are NOT protected by a UPS.
Recovery Procedures when the power returns
Normally, the following is a correct procedural step process for re-starting computer equipment when your power returns are:
1. Verify that your router and network switches are connected and have power.
2. Restart your domain server (if you have one), after it restarts, restart your Counterpoint server.
3. After the counterpoint server comes all the way up, log into windows, and verify that you can access Counterpoint without error.
4. Make sure that all your external register peripherals are turned on.
5. Restart your registers, and wait until the come up completely before attempting to log into Counterpoint.
6. Access Counterpoint, and do a test POS ticket (including the printing of a receipt) in order to verify that everything is functioning correctly
If you do have any equipment issue that you cannot resolve, please contact your MIS person, and/or the CCS Retail Systems Support Department.
– John