PSM setup guidelines

ITEM: RTA000154935



Q:                                                                              
Origin item: 05347,998,624                                                      
Topic thread:                                                                   
Printer Systems (PRINT - NA/ATS)                                                
 Printing Systems Manager (PSM)                                                 
  PRINT PSMAIX                                                                  
                                                                                
Environment : AIX 4.2.1, SP/2, PSSP 2.4                                         
              PSM V 1.2.2, Server + supervisor + spooler on one node            
Question :                                                                      
  cust complains that the manuals are not explicit                              
  enought to help him in this: Having over 1000 printers,                       
  cust is wondering wat the IBM suggested way (best configuration)              
  is to configure PSM:                                                          
  one/several spoolers ? one/several supervisors ? all queues for              
  one spooler and several supervisor ? or all queues for                        
  several spoolers and one supervisor ? how much ?                              
Additionel question :                                                           
  This customers is continuesly asking PSM questions, isn't there               
any clear and complete documentation available.                                 
A:                                                                              
I would be happy to give you some guidelines to follow but I cannot             
architect a solution for you.  If you need a solution architected you           
need to go through Professional Services.                                       
                                                                                
Unfortunately, there is no other PSM documentation that relates to              
setup/configuration other than the standard PSM docs.                           
                                                                                
As for some standard guidelines.  I am a little concerned that you are          
going to be driving 1000+ printers on one SP node.  There are several          
factors that need to be weighed to see if that one node will be                 
sufficient, such as the datastream you are printing?  Will it be                
transformed?  What is the volume?  What is the size of each job?  What          
kind of printers are you printing to?  IPDS?  PCL? etc.  What is the            
network traffic going to be like?  What size is the processor?  How much        
memory?  How much dasd? etc. etc.Are their other apps running on this           
system?                                                                         
                                                                                
As for the number of spoolers and supervisors, it depends on the type           
of printers you will be printing to, and how they are attached.  Are            
they going to be created as PSF DSS printers or AIX DSS printers?  Are          
they widely distributed? or in a central location?                              
                                                                                
PSF DSS printers are the most restrictive.  AIX has a hard limit of             
512 threads per process.  When creating PSF printers, you will typically       
use 3 threads per printer assuming only one job is printing, or being           
processed by the printer at a time.  So depending on the work load,             
I would suggest that you only have between 150 and 200 PSF type printers        
defined to any one supervisor, depending on how many printers will be           
active at any one time.  AIX DSS printers use less threads and                  
are less processor intensive.  You can have 300 to 350 printers per             
supervisor.                                                                     
                                                                                
Another organization consideration, is the layout of the enterprise.            
I have seen companies that organize it by department.  A hospital, for          
instance, may have several different buildings throughout their campus.         
They put each building on a separate server/spooler/supervisor.                 
                                                                                
There are several ways to do this, but I would suggest that you go              
through your local professional services and have them architect you           
a solution.                                                                     
                                                                                
I hope these guidelines help.  It is a big job and not easy to do, so           
good luck.                                                                      
                                                                                
Thank you for using WWQ&A.                                                      
                                                                                
S e a r c h - k e y w o r d s:                                                  
psm solution architect supervisors spoolers servers sp node psf dss             
organization threads 512                                                        
                                                                                
                                                                                
                                                                                
                                                                                
                                                                               


WWQA: ITEM: RTA000154935 ITEM: RTA000154935
Dated: 01/1999 Category: PSMAIX
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