Automatic switching between mvs download printing and
ITEM: RTA000091290
Q:
ABSTRACT: Automatic switching between MVS Download printing and
network printing
SEARCH ARG: psf/6000
TOPIC THREAD: PRINT
AFP
PSF6000
..
Customer currently prints network jobs to a 3900 wide duplex driven by
PSF/AIX. Customer now wants to also print host jobs to the same printer
via MVS Download. The customer would like to setup the systems in such
a way as to automatically print all LAN jobs that have been queued,
then print all host jobs that have been queued, then switch back to
printing LAN jobs and so on. The customer wants to minimize the effort
of separating host jobs from LAN jobs.
One approach to do this is to give the host jobs a high priority and the
LAN jobs a lower priority. This would almost meet the customers need
since all host jobs would print before LAN jobs start to print. However
host jobs received once LAN jobs begin to print would be interleaved
within the LAN jobs.
Another approach would be to define multiple queues to a single printer
(similar to defining a second queue for PCL printing as described in
the Print Administration manual). If PSF prints all jobs in one queue
before servicing the second queue this will work. However if PSF
services both queues at the same time this will not work.
1) How does PSF service a printer when multiple queues are defined and
released to the same printer?
2) Is there any way to setup PSF/AIX in this customers environment (LAN
and MVS Download jobs) to provide equivalent queuing service to
the way PSF/AIX manages LAN and PSF direct queues? For the record,
the customer did not want to setup a PSF Direct session for two
reasons. They have standardized on TCP/IP, not LU6.2 and they did
not want the print operators to learn MVS commands to manage the
printers. MVS Download provides the same method of managing
host print and LAN print.
Thanks for your assistance.
A:
You have a couple of options.
1) You can set up two different PSF/6000 queues for the same printer.
Only one of those queues can actually be active at any one time
(because of the two-way IPDS conversation between PSF and the
printer). Then you have a choice between manual and automatic
(timer-based) intervention. Note that you would incur the overhead
of PSF/6000 reinitializing and downloading resources every time the
switch between PSF/6000 queues is made.
a) Manual: An AIX operator can stop one instance of PSF/6000
and start the other using the psfctl command. This would
allow the operator to control whether the jobs coming from
MVS Download or from users on the LAN would print.
b) Automatic/timer: You can set the Job interval SHUTDOWN timer
in the PSF/6000 Tuning options. This parameter causes PSF/6000
to stop printing jobs from the AIX spool if it has completed
the AIX spool data and the specified interval elapses with no
new AIX spool data. The other PSF/6000 queue/instance will
wait indefinitely for the printer to become available; there is
no configuration parameter that controls how long the program
waits (unlike PSF Direct). You might still run into situations
where your jobs interleave, however, depending on how the timers
pop.
2) Another option using manual operator intervention (similar to 1a
above) would be to set up a single PSF/6000 queue, and then front-end
it with two AIX local queues (smit mklque on AIX 3.2.5 or smit pq
on AIX 4.1.x) -- one AIX local queue for the MVS Download jobs and
one for LAN jobs. This would be like the process to set up a
dedicated PCL queue as you mentioned (page 229-231 of the Print
Administration manual, S544-3817-02). The single PSF/6000 queue
would stay up, but you could disable the AIX queues that front-end it
as you wish using the normal AIX commands (such as "disable" or
"enq -D").
For example, say that you've defined a PSF/6000 queue called
"psf3900". Then you could create a local AIX queue (using the
correct command for your level of AIX) to create an AIX local
queue called "mvsdown". The backend program pathname would be
"/usr/lpp/psf/bin/ainbe psf3900" plus whatever default parameters
you want to set up on the backend. Then you'd create a second
local AIX queue for your LAN users called "lanprt". Its backend
program pathname would also be "/usr/lpp/psf/bin/ainbe psf3900"
plus whatever defaults you want.
You'd bring up the "psf3900" queue (using psfctl), and you could
alternately disable/enable "mvsdown" and "lanprt" using AIX commands.
This approach has the benefit of keeping PSF/6000 initialized and
resources at the printer (based on your PSF tuning options).
You should also be able to write some sort of program (such as a
cron job) to automatically disable one queue and enable another
at certain times.
Or as you mentioned, you could use prioritization, but you can encounter
interleaved jobs.
Regarding your specific questions:
R1) PSF will take jobs first come first served if multiple AIX local
queues are defined and active. (You can't have multiple PSF queues
active simultaneously.)
R2) Answered above.
I hope that helps.
S e a r c h - k e y w o r d s:
AIX PSF/6000 PSF FOR AIX MVS DOWNLOAD ALTERNATE INTERLEAVE LAN TCP/IP
WWQA: ITEM: RTA000091290 ITEM: RTA000091290
Dated: 02/1996 Category: XPSF6000
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