Determining the print submission protocol

To print from a Windows application or with the print command, you must determine which protocol you want to use to submit your print request to Infoprint Server. Your administrator must customize Infoprint Server to use each of these protocols. Therefore, consult your administrator to determine which protocols you can use in your installation.

IBM® Infoprint Port Monitor for Windows:

Software that runs on a Windows workstation. It lets you print files on z/OS printers just like you print files on local Windows printers. You can submit the files from any Windows application that has a printing function.

Infoprint Port Monitor V3.1 runs on Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008, Windows 7, Windows Vista (Business Edition, Enterprise Edition), and Windows XP.

Note:

Infoprint Port Monitor V3.1 can run on 32-bit Windows systems or on 64-bit Windows systems that are based on x64 architecture. However, it cannot run on 64-bit Windows systems that are based on Intel Itanium architecture.

Server Message Block (SMB) protocol:

The standard printing protocol provided with Windows systems. Infoprint Server supports the SMB protocol on Windows systems.

Internet Printing Protocol (IPP):

Lets you print over the Internet from a Windows IPP client.

These protocols support different print functions and have different limitations as summarized in Table 12.

Table 12. Comparison of Windows printing protocols

Function supported

Infoprint Port Monitor

SMB

IPP

Specify job attributes during printing

Yes¹

Yes²

Obtain print job status

Yes³

Yes⁴

Yes⁵

Define a Windows shared printer

Yes

You can specify any job attributes described in Using job attributes.
You can specify any IPP job attributes. However, Infoprint Server supports only the copies, document-name, and job-priority job attributes.
You can see the documents that are waiting to print (they are on the Windows print queue for the printer). If an error occurred, you can view the Windows Event Log.
When the Windows job status window is open, z/OS system performance might be degraded.
You can see the documents that are waiting to print (they are on the Windows print queue for the printer). In addition, you can see the documents that are spooled for the printer definition on z/OS®. They are visible as long as they remain in the Printer Inventory. For example, you can see held jobs (shown as “Paused” on the Windows job status window).