<div>
I guess if you give a little more info about your application server you will get better advice..
</div>


<div>
The server collects all the posting from all of the time clocks used. &nbsp;It processes peoples time. &nbsp;The software that does the time collection is part of our ERP system. &nbsp;Currently, the software is running on a Windows 10 machine but could be run on any Microsoft OS.
</div>


<div>
In my experience time clocks with Lan capabilities ( i reckon you use a similar one) have an onboard memory that holds data for a specific time period...the one we had could store if my memory serves me right around 2 weeks of time data
</div>


<div>
The problem is if the server goes down the time clocks do not allow anyone to capture any more time. &nbsp;We can buy another license of the server and hook up half the time clocks to that but it will cost us 20k for the license. &nbsp;I'm just trying to figure out if there's another way to do it before spending the money.
</div>


<div>
You could use Hyper-V or VMWare to host a virtual machine of the server running the application. Then you have options of:<br />
<br />
1. Take regular snapshot which can be restored if the VM encounters a problem. (Manual process)<br />
<br />
2. (More expensive) add another VM host and setup replication between the two. If the primary VM goes down the secondary VM should start up automatically if configured correctly.
</div>


<div>
Well...just a thought...maybe..just maybe you could replace your time clocks with other that continue to operate even when there is no connection...if you just use time clocks to capture employees in/out then it doesn't matter if it's not real time...
</div>


<div>
These are the only time clocks that work with our system.
</div>


<div>
Andy, I'm not familiar with the VM method you are referring to. &nbsp;We do have 3 VMWare ESXi hosts. &nbsp;We have HA but I thought that only moved the VM between ESXi hosts, should one fail. &nbsp;I didn't think I could setup identical clients on two of the hosts and have it fail over that way. &nbsp;Is that still through HA or something different?
</div>


<div>
<div class="content wysiwyg-content">
We have an application server that is mission critical. Is it possible to create a backup of the server, where everything is identical including the IP Address, that works on something like a heartbeat and only comes online if the other server goes down?
</div>
</div>


We have an application server that is mission critical. Is it possible to create a backup of the server, where everything is identical including the IP Address, that works on something like a heartbeat and only comes online if the other server goes down?

Creating a redundant application server

An application server is a software framework that provides both facilities to create applications and a server environment to run them. Most application server frameworks contain a comprehensive service layer model, acting as a set of components accessible to the software developer through an API defined by the platform itself. For Web applications, these components are usually performed in the same running environment as their web server(s), and their main job is to support the construction of dynamic pages. However, many application servers target much more than just Web page generation: they implement services like clustering, fail-over, and load-balancing.