Sharing the communication link with IPDS printers

Since only one print driver can have an open communication link with an IPDS printer at a time, management of multiple print drivers is necessary. This can be done in one of two ways:

• Manually start and stop the InfoPrint Manager actual destinations and Host PSF printers to control the print driver operating the printer
• Configure the print drivers to wait for the printer to become available and to release the communication link when the print drivers have nothing to print.

The connection timer identifies how long to wait for the printer to become available. The release or inactivity timer identifies how long the print driver should maintain the communication link when it has no work to do. When a print driver is actively feeding jobs to the printer, the print driver continues to do so as long as the interval between job submissions is not longer than the specified release or inactivity time. The print driver controls the printer until the flow of jobs sufficiently slows. The release or inactivity time values make sure that the destination is shared equally between the printer drivers, which is important. For detailed information about setting these values in InfoPrint Manager, see Sharing actual destinations with a host in RICOH InfoPrint Manager for AIX: Procedures.

You must configure the print drivers when one or more of these are configured to drive the same printer:

• InfoPrint Manager actual destinations
• Host PSF printers

When you configure the print drivers, these conditions apply:

• There is no single point of control and auditing for all jobs printed. Multiple interfaces must be used to determine all pending jobs for a printer.
• There is no automated job prioritization between jobs from different print drivers. Manual actions are required to force an active print driver to release the printer to allow another waiting print driver to use it.
• Aside from the printer and network, there is not a single point of failure.