Printronix P5000LJ user manual Print Job Servers, Logical Printer Architecture

Chapter 5 Overview

Print Job Servers

In most larger networks, print jobs usually are managed by designating one protocol and method for printing and then designating specific computers as print job servers, rather than by directing any host running any protocol to the networked printer resource. Computers designated as print job servers have large hard disk space to store print data and spool management software. All clients direct their print job to the computer designated as the print job server rather than the printer; therefore, the client to print job server network protocol used might not be the same as the print job server to NIC. Large network environments today are generally TCP/IP or Novell network protocols or a mixture of the two.

Common examples of larger networks utilizing the P5000LJ Series printers and NIC:

•Many Windows 95/98 clients directing print jobs to an NT server. The Windows 95/98 clients, NT server, and P5000LJ Series printer might or might not be in the same physical location, building, or even country. The printer is located based on where its output is needed, not where the jobs originate. Remote printer management tools (PPM, SNMP, etc.) give the same ability to the administrator today that networking provided in the past.

•Windows 95/98, NT, Novell network client computers direct output to a Unixmachine designated as the print job server which spools and manages print jobs. The designated print server could be an

HP e3000, IBM AS/400, Unix (or Linux), or Novell machine.

Logical Printer Architecture

NIC implements a logical printer architecture which gives the system administrator the possibility to configure the print server to handle and act upon the print data in several ways. When a print job comes through the print server, there is a certain logical print path that it follows before it gets to the printer. Each logical print path consists of a sequence of logical steps where extra processing may be performed on the print data before it is sent to the printer. This ability to preprocess the print data before it is sent to the printer allows elimination of printing problems, or implementation of printer enhancements that may be difficult and time consuming to solve or introduce at the system, spool or queue level, yet be simplistic to perform at the print server level.

The logical print path for a print job going through NIC consist of three different phases:

•Phase 1 - The host sends the job to a destination or queue on NIC (e.g. d1prn).

•Phase 2 - The print job passes through the associated “model”

(e.g. model “m1”) on NIC for any extra processing associated with the model.

•Phase 3 - The processed print job is directed to the printer for output.

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