SCO World Magazine says is Top of the World!

REVIEW - Printer Spool Managers by Michael P. Deignan

Several utilities on the market today can help you manage your companys output. What do they offer and how do they work?

Managing printers and user printouts can rapidly become a full-time chore, as any system administrator in a large environment knows. Large environments with many users and limited printer resources compel users to share printers. Consequently, a printer management program soon becomes a must in any multiple-host SCO environment.

SCO includes basic print-job scheduling in its LP print-spooling system. However, this component has little to offer a large environment. Changes due to shifting priorities and deadlines affect productivity, so first come, first served is not always the best policy. Instead, administrators need extensive control over their printing resources. The flexibility they need is similar to the control mainframe system administrators have over printers.

To meet consumer demand, several companies are now offering more extensive print-queue-management programs. Their products give you additional control above and beyond what SCOs basic software provides. These products include LP Plus from Digital Controls Corp., Spoolview from Light Infocon, and UniQue from LBM Systems Corp. They all purport to supply the additional capabilities you demand.

How well do they work and how well do their features stock up? In this Roundup we examine all three products. Each can do the basic job of providing more control over you printing. None of them is outrageously expensive, considering their capabilities. But two of them merit special recognition. This month we give our Top of the World award to LP Plus and Spoolview. Both programs handle nearly any potential printing problem. They also offer many features inexpensively. In addition, both (especially LP Plus) address important security issues. (To read about more aspects of security, see our March 1997 Web Security Focus issue).

Digital Controls LP Plus - LP Plus, from Digital Controls Corp., is a command-line and menu-based printing management system for SCO systems. LP Plus can either replace the existing LP system on your SCO system or run concurrently with LP should the need arise. LP Plus can function this way for all other UNIX platforms as well, according to the company.

The software installs off of three 3.5-inch floppy diskettes. To install it, you must first extract the files from floppy using the cpio command. Unfortunately LP Plus does not use the SCO custom command to perform the installation. However, there is one benefit to this restriction. Since LP Plus is available for a half dozen UNIX operating systems, the installation process is the same for each. After processing all three floppies, you run a small installation program. It prompts you for an installation directory and completes the installation process.

LP Plus provides powerful spooling and print-job manipulation capabilities from both the command-line and the menu-based system. The software has all the features of the stock SCO LP print utility, plus a lot more. You can go far beyond starting and holding jobs. You can also stop jobs, restart jobs (at the point where they left off or at a different page number), and even print jobs at a later time.

The software consists of several components. The first is a print scheduler. This daemon runs in the background and manages all the printers and print queues you set up using the software. Other components include command-line utilities and a menuing system.

The software manages three different types of printers: local, network and remote. A local printer is one you connect directly to your SCO host. A network printer is a printer residing on the network, accessed by the software over TCP/IP. A remote printer is a printer on another computer system, such as another SCO machine or Novell host. Each printer can support many different forms, although only one from is active at any one time on a printer.

When you specify a particular from, it merely defines the type of paper the printer is using. For instance, if you have preprinted invoicing forms on a printer, you can define it as using the invoice from. When you tell the LP Plus scheduler what type of paper is in a printer, the program holds print jobs until proper forms are in it. This feature can prevent major mishaps. An example would be printing your payroll checks on 8.5 x 11- inch paper because someone forgot to put the preprinted check forms into the printer.

By defining several different printers and forms to your LP Plus system, you can completely automate how your print jobs flow. When you tell LP Plus to print a job using a specific from, LP Plus selects the first printer with the from currently available. This method is much better then specifying a specific printer and waiting for someone to put the correct paper in it. You can also create groups of printers. This feature prevents LP Plus from assigning a job to a printer located a significant distance from the user.

LP Plus also has comprehensive security features. You can restrict access to certain printers at the user level. This feature can prevent users from using your expensive color laser printer for inappropriate print jobs. LP Plus also takes security a step further. The software allows you to grant access to specific operations. Examples would be canceling other print jobs or changing the forms on the printer. You dont have to grant blanket authority to use a printer.

LP Plus is an extensive, full-featured print spooling program. The softwares cost is $295. For a two-printer license, this price is reasonable, considering the features offered. With LP Plus you cannot go wrong managing your printer resources.

Michael Deignan, our senior writer, is MIS manager for the City of Providence Police Separtment in Providence, R.I. You can reach him via e-mail at [email protected]

___SCO World Magazine - April 1997____