Introducing Print Services Facility

Print Services Facility™ (PSF) is a licensed printer driver program. Table 1 shows the AFP operating systems and the PSF products they support.

PSF has similar capabilities in all environments, plus differences unique to the operating system on which it is running. This information focuses on PSF on the z/OS system. On any operating system, PSF combines print data with resources to manage and control data transmitted to AFP printers. PSF accepts various data streams, transforms these data streams into the data stream required by each printer (using processing and printing options specified by the user and the installation), and then transmits the data to the printer. In addition, PSF:

• Manages resources
• Verifies a part of the syntax of the input data stream (the printer verifies the rest of the syntax)
• Provides diagnostic aids, which provide information that can be used for problem determination
• Reports the status of a printer to the system operator
• Provides accounting information
• Provides error-recovery procedures for AFP printers, meaning that if a job does not print because of a printer problem, PSF retransmits the affected pages to the printer at a later time

With PSF, you receive a starter set of resources. You can create additional resources by using other programs.