If you are a workstation user, you are probably accustomed to having a printer close by, if not on, your desk. In contrast, the MVS™ system intentionally screens the user from printer knowledge and uses a printer resource pool. One facility provided to manage this pool is the System Display and Search Facility (SDSF).

You can, of course, download z/OS UNIX files and print them at your workstation. However, it may be more convenient to have print jobs sent to accessible Job Entry Subsystem (JES) printers directly by the shell. In addition, you may want to use the large-volume printing facilities offered by MVS.