Revision 6    HC900 Process & Safety Controller User and Installation Manual  165 
21 April 2017 
Redundant Operating Characteristics 
Overview 
This section describes operating characteristics specific to redundant controllers. 
In a redundant HC900 system, the Lead Controller performs all primary tasks including interfacing with 
remote I/O racks, communicating with a local HMI, exchanging data with peer controllers, interfacing with 
Modbus slave devices, and communicating with a Host PC application.  Detection of a fault or removing 
power from a Reserve Controller will initiate a diagnostic prompt in the Lead Controller, but will have no 
impact on the process under control.  The detection of a fault or removing power from a Lead Controller 
will initiate failover, that is, transfer all primary tasks to the Reserve Controller, establishing this controller 
as the new Lead.  Following a failover, the new Lead Controller will remain the Lead, even if the condition 
that caused the failover is corrected.  
Start-Up 
  Assignment of Lead and Reserve status is determined at start-up 
 First available C75 assumes Lead 
 In case of a tie, CPU mounted in the left position of the rack will Lead  
 No user configuration or manual operations required to establish Lead / Reserve status 
  Lead Controller assumes control of I/O and all external communication interfaces. 
  Reserve Controller receives the configuration from the Lead Controller 
Modes of operation (Figure 87) 
The modes of operation are: 
  Run 
  Run/Program 
  Program 
You can change modes with: 
  key-switch on the redundancy control module 
  HC Designer software 
  HC Utilities software  
  900Control Station. 
  a command from a supervisory host 
Both Lead and Reserve Controllers maintain the same mode.  Placing the Lead Controller into the Program 
mode will also place the Reserve Controller in the Program mode.