Introduction to Printing from z/OS

Session 17097
March 5, 2015 Seattle
Howard Turetzky
Advanced Technical Support
Ricoh Production Print Solutions
[email protected]
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Course Syllabus
• “A fine mess you’ve gotten us into”
– A very brief history of digital printing
• What’s in a print file
• Where does print come from?
• Why is all this important to me?
• z/OS as a Big Print Server
• The Life of a Print Job
• What a Systems Programmer needs to know
• How do I find out more?

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Classes of Print

• Casual printing
– An email, some pages of a PDF, a web page…
– To a desktop printer
• Commercial Print
– Books, magazines, junk mail, catalogs, flyers…
• Production Print
– Business documents, statements, checks, reports…(landfill)
– Most of the printing we do from z/OS, what we’re going to discuss
here today

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History of Printing from Mainframes
• In the beginning, every computer was a mainframe
– From the first, it was necessary to show the results of computation
• Electro-mechanical printers were first made for accounting machines
like the IBM 407
– Impact printers – mechanical or solenoid hammer, inked ribbon and
moveable die with character shapes
– Later printers were also impact printers
• Dot-matrix print head
– Connected by coaxial cable using SNA/SCS or serial / parallel ports
• High-speed impact using print train or chain
– Channel attached
– First laser printers
– From IBM – 3800 continuous-form, 1976
– From Xerox – 9700 cut-sheet, 1977
– Required mainframe computers to drive

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History of Printing from Mainframes
– Advanced Function Printing
• Introduced in 1984
• First architected print file format
• Can format line data into full-page documents with images, graphics, fonts
• In 2004 IBM released the AFP standard to an industry consortium, which
developed the new color management architecture (afpcolor.org)
• Used today for most high-speed business transaction printing
– Network-attached printers
• Connected to workstation (PCs, Unix/Linux)
• Or later by TCP/IP
• Low-cost desktop laser printers from Canon, HP, and Apple introduced
around 1992
– Postscript printers such as the Apple Laserwriter often had more powerful
processors than the computers that used them
– Today’s high-speed color printers (900 pages per minute and up) still require
high bandwidth and multiple processors

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What's in a print file?

• Most common on System z:

– Line data
• lines of text, usually with 1 or 2 control bytes
– AFP (alias MO:DCA) (IBM / AFP Consortium)
• structured fields (binary datastream) with text, graphics, images,
fonts and control structures
– LCDS & Metacode (Xerox)
• Lines of text with text based (not binary) control commands
• Metacode is binary controls with text, image and graphics
• Sometimes used on z:
– Postscript, PDF (Adobe)
• Graphic data programming language and its descendant
– PCL (HP)
• Escape sequences and text

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Where does print come from on z?
• Batch jobs
– Production runs, sometime tens to hundreds of thousands of pages,
gigabyte-sized files
• Transaction printing
– Usually less than a hundred pages
– From CICS / IMS or other VTAM applications
• Originally intended for coax-attached printers
– LU1 (SCS)
– LU3 (3270)
• From another system
– z/OS / VM / VSE
– NJE, with print attributes
– Windows
• SMB, IPP or LPR
– Unix
• LPR

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Where does print come from on z?

• Most formatted print files are created by Document

Composition Systems
– Usually have a document designer
• Typically runs on Windows for graphical placement of page and
document elements
• Creates some print resources, includes others
– Fonts, images, graphics
– And a print formatter or generator program
• May run on multiple platforms, including z/OS
• Uses the designer template to read data from a file or database and
create a print file
• May be able to generate multiple print languages
• Usually additional functions such as indexing or web presentment
– Exstream Dialog, FIS Custom Statement Formatter, GMC PrintNet,
ISIS Papyrus, Group1 DOC1…

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Where does print come from on z?

• Still many user-written programs that make print files

– Application programs, often in COBOL
– May use print APIs, home-grown generator code, or external
formatter
• Like PPFA for AFP or AFP Toolbox or Xerox JDL compiler
• WYSIWYG tools like Elixir DesignPro Tools or ISIS Papyrus
Designer
• Wide variety of print file transforms
– Typically from or to AFP, PDF, PostScript, PCL
– Often part of a print distribution system like VPS or Infoprint Server
• And print we don’t print
– Print is often printed and archived, or just archived
– Retrieve documents for reprint, customer service, or legal
requirements

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Why Is All This Important?
• The things we print
– Internal reports
• Your users need them to manage the business
– Production print
• Prints and mails the bills that your customers pay so your paycheck
won’t bounce!
• ”Mission critical" print: bills, invoices, checks, legal
documents needed to keep the business operating
– Produced to deadlines: missing a schedule costs $$$
– High cost of mailing
• Web presentment for some customers
• Mail cost reduction for others
– Postal sortation, Weight calculations
• Profit centered printing
– Sell white space on customer documents for advertisements

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z/OS As A Big Print Server

• Printer Drivers for AFP (IPDS)

– High-volume
– Production print
– Automated recovery
• Mission-critical print requires guaranteed printing of each page and
no duplicates (how many copies of that check do you want?)
– Connected channel (ESCON or Fibre) or, mostly, TCP/IP
– Common print server software
• IBM PSF, Océ SPS, LRS VPS/IPDS
• Non-AFP printing connected over TCP/IP or coax
– IBM Infoprint Server
– LRS VPS
– MacKinney JES Queue for Printers
– CA Spool

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The Life of a Print Job

• Most production transaction print is created on System z

– Even if it isn’t printed there
– In most cases, print is sent to the JES spool from
• Batch jobs
• VTAM virtual printer
• From another system
• JES schedules the job to print
– Based on work selection
– Sends it to a print driver
• Process SYSOUT (PSO) writer or older channel-attached printers
• After the file is printed:
– Normally, if there are no print errors, the job is purged
– Print servers usually re-queue failed jobs

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The Life of a Print Job

• JES functional subsystem

– Intelligent print driver such as PSF or SPS
– Converts and manages output and printers
• Print file transfer programs from JES to remote server
• Download for z/OS, AFP Download Plus, PRISMAproduction Host
ROUTER
• Print file is taken from the spool by a de-spooler
• For printers not managed by JES
– Email, ftp server…
• Usually use JES SAPI (SYSOUT API) to select jobs
– VPS, Infoprint Server
• Remote print servers
– Ricoh, LRS, Oce, Pitney-Bowes and others have print servers that run
on workstation platforms

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Getting the Print to the Printer
VTAM
transaction
applications
Batch
applications

VTAM Intercept

JES Spool

IPDS (AFP) Printer

De- Print
Spooler Services
Print file
transfer

Remote
Print
Server
Network Printer
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What A Systems Programmer Needs To Know

• JES
– How it works
– How output is scheduled and managed
• Operator commands
– How to configure it
– How to manage it
– What it doesn't do
• Format print
• Drive most modern printers
– JES only knows how to talk to channel-attached and NJE printers
– Doesn’t directly speak to TCP/IP-attached printers
– Knows little or nothing about AFP/IPDS, Xerox, PostScript™/PDF/PCL

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What A Systems Programmer Needs To Know

• Something about your printers

– Basic print formatting education
• Enough to know the basics of what you use
– Printer characteristics
» How they connect
» What Page Description Languages they speak
» How to administer them
• AFP (MO:DCA)
• Xerox LCDS/metacode
• PCL/postscript/PDF remote printing

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What a Systems Programmer needs to know
• Communications
– Most modern printers driven over TCP/IP
– Older remote printers are SNA
• Your shop probably plans to migrate to TCP/IP
• Your print software: configuration and management
– Resource libraries
– Online management tools
– Console / SDSF or equivalent
– Infoprint central, VMCF
– Printer web page
• Extra credit
– Many companies expect the systems programmer to also manage resources
or even do print formatting
– Learn your company’s printing strategy and direction
• Know where you fit
• Defend yourself

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When It Doesn't Print, Who Are They Gonna Call?

• Print operations
• Help desk
• Who will help the help desk?
– You…

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How Do I Find Out More?
• Product manuals
– People put a lot of time and effort into producing good manuals—use them!
AFP Consortium: http://afpcinc.org/afp-publications/
– IBM Pubs: http://www-01.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/#!/SSLTBW_2.1.0/
com.ibm.zos.v2r1.aps/aps.htm?cp=SSLTBW_2.1.0%2F20
• Vendor support
– Most hardware and software vendors have extensive support organizations
• Online forums
– MVS main
– afp-l mailing list https://www.listserv.uga.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A0=AFP-L
• Share
– For z-based print software
• Xplor
– For printing technology: http://xplor.org
– Print operations management

As Mulder observed, “We are not alone…”

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Questions?

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