Chapter 1. Introducing Infoprint Manager For Aix; Chapter 1, "Introducing Infoprint Manager For Aix; Optimizing Your Print Resources - Ricoh InfoPrint Pro C900AFP Planning Manual

Chapter 1. Introducing InfoPrint Manager for AIX

InfoPrint Manager for AIX is a flexible and scalable print management solution,
providing you with many choices of how to expand and manage your print
environment. Your print environment might be simple with a few high-speed
devices located together, or you might support hundreds of printers dispersed
across your enterprise. In either case, InfoPrint Manager helps you make the most
of your printing resources.

Optimizing your print resources

Your print resources are the applications that generate print jobs, your printer
devices, and the InfoPrint Manager objects that control the jobs as they process and
print. Your default InfoPrint Manager configuration includes one InfoPrint
Manager server, a queue, a logical destination, and an actual destination (physical
printer). Before adding more InfoPrint Manager objects, consider how InfoPrint
Manager can help you:
v Manage your printer devices and distribute your printing workload
v Balance the use of AIX operating systems
v Control print jobs
v See significant events when they happen
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Many print environments have a significant investment in printer devices and a
significant printing workload. InfoPrint Manager gives you the ability to manage
all of your printer hardware centrally. You can establish a configuration that lets
you route jobs with common requirements to a particular printer or set of
printers that support those types of jobs. This lets you mitigate situations where
some printers are idle while others have a backlog of jobs waiting to print. By
optimizing the use of each printer, you can distribute your print demands
among all available printers.
By balancing the printing work load, you can also optimize the use of your AIX
systems that support printing. These systems can use a significant amount of
their resources to accept, schedule, and process jobs, and to manage the printers
they control. System usage includes processing time, memory, and fixed disk
capacity. If you use several InfoPrint Manager servers running on several AIX or
Windows systems, you distribute the printing demands of your organization and
produce output more efficiently.
InfoPrint Manager provides you with flexibility in specifying defaults for your
print jobs. You might want to use different job defaults for specific output
devices or for specific types of jobs. When you configure your system, you
should consider when and how you plan to use defaults and how to use them
most effectively. Effective use of defaults can influence other configuration
decisions you make.
InfoPrint Manager supports event notification to inform job submitters,
operators, and administrators of conditions that require their attention. For
example, InfoPrint Manager can notify operators when queues have a backlog of
jobs or when the printers they operate are out of paper. Your job submitters can
receive notification if InfoPrint Manager cannot schedule their jobs at the
requested destination. Notifications include event messages to help your
personnel diagnose and isolate the cause of the problem. When you configure
InfoPrint Manager, you select the types of notification you want, thus ensuring
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