PSF/AIX performance with large AFP files

ITEM: RTA000155728



Q:                                                                              
Topic thread:                                                                   
Printer Systems (PRINT - NA/ATS)                                                
 PSF/AIX                                                                        
                                                                                
Hi, we have a customer that sends ascii files to another company; the           
second company uses PSF/6000 and two IP3900 to construct and print those        
applications. Now the first customer is changing his system to generate         
AFP files, so they are going to give AFP files instead of ascii                 
files to the second company.  The second company argues that they will          
have performance problems with the large AFP files generated in the             
first company. Is this right??? Are there problems trying to print large        
AFP files already generated using PSF/6000, do we have to segment those         
file to a specific size????                                                     
Thks in advance.                                                               
                                                                                
A:                                                                              
In general, there should be less of a load on the PSF/AIX system since          
they don't have to convert from ASCII to AFPDS. The conversion from             
AFPDS to IPDS (to the printer) is fairly simple since the two                   
architectures are so similar. Disk space is another question.                   
                                                                                
The first question is, "how large are the AFPDS files?".                        
  Is the first company planning to send AFP resources inline in the             
  data stream, or are they just going to send the AFPDS file with               
  references (pointers) to the external resources (fonts, overlays,             
  page segments)?  Certainly, the latter would be smaller than the              
  former.  I would not recommend including fonts inline as those would          
  definitely increase the size of the AFP file.  Also, note that the            
  size of the AFPDS file will depend on how efficiently the AFPDS              
  generator creates the AFPDS.                                                  
                                                                                
I think we would need more detail on the exact content of the AFPDS,            
the method the first company is using to send the file to the second            
company (FTP, tape, etc.), what level of AIX the second company is on,          
how much disk space they have, and of course, the size of the AFPDS             
file.  There's no way to tell without additional information or actually        
looking at the file the first company generates; the AFPDS could be             
reasonably small and efficient, or it could be quite large if it                
includes inline resources and/or is inefficient AFPDS.                          
                                                                                
If you can get additional information on the questions asked, I'll be           
glad to try to help further.                                                    
                                                                                
S e a r c h - k e y w o r d s:                                                 
psf/6000 psf/aix psf aix afpds ascii afp performance inline remote              
file size                                                                       
                                                                                
                                                                                
                                                                                
                                                                                
                                                                                
                                                                                
                                                                                
                                                                                
                                                                                
                                                                                
                                                                                
                                                                                
                                                                               


WWQA: ITEM: RTA000155728 ITEM: RTA000155728
Dated: 04/1999 Category: XPSF6000
This HTML file was generated 99/06/24~12:43:43
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