[439] in Enterprise Print Delivery Team
Re: Info Print Manager demo
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (David F Lambert)
Wed Aug 9 08:12:17 2000
Message-Id: <10008091211.AA28150@MIT.EDU>
Date: Wed, 09 Aug 00 07:43:04 EDT
From: David F Lambert <LAMBERT@MITVMA.MIT.Edu>
To: Theresa M Regan <tregan@MIT.EDU>
Cc: Enterprise Printing Delivery Project Team <printdel@MIT.EDU>
In-Reply-To: Your message of Tue, 08 Aug 2000 00:08:17 -0400
On Tue, 08 Aug 2000 00:08:17 -0400 you said:
>Good Day,
>
>Earlier today, I chatted with Dave and requested rescheduling Wednesday's
>meeting, so, I could attend. Lynne quickly and graciously changed the
>meeting time from 1pm to 2:30pm. With the revised meeting, Rob Smyser has
>had to reconsider and does not plan to attend.
>
>I am wondering about the meeting's agenda. Initially, when I read Lynne's
>invite, I was picturing a more detailed discussion about the current,
>network, printing solution (SAP R/3 generated reports, APS, printer) and
>"potential" Info Print Manager process. When chatting with Dave, I was
>left with the impression that the discussion may be... a person has a
>large print request and wishes to print it elsewhere...
>
>In either case, it strikes me that demoing to as many people as possible
>would be helpful. Is it possible to propose another meeting day, in hopes,
>that Rob could attend? I also wonder if the invitee list s/b broader.
>Computing-help is designated as the first-point of contact for network
>printing.
>
>Apologies for the last minute request to reschedule. If the team prefers
>to leave Wednesday's 2:30pm meeting confirmed, I understand and we can
>always initiate further demos, later.
>
>Thanks,
>Theresa
Hi Theresa,
It would probably be useful to describe the pecking order of the IPM
rollout - the schedule has slipped though...
1) Move the E19-699 HP8100 used by CAO from APS to IPM. This will
give us good experience with handling Postscript input straight
thru to a Postscript printer. We hope this will be accomplished
in late August/early Sept.
2) Handle large volume Postscript (more than the HP8100 can handle).
We plan on accomplishing this by using IPM's datastream transformation
capabilities. We'll convert Postscript to AFP/IPDS and use the
two IBM 3160 printers (60pg/m) as the print engines. We've already
done some testing with CAO output and included Gill Emmons in this
effort to review the quality of the transformed output. Output
resolution has been acceptable to CAO. We plan to have this functionality
available in Sept. CAO plans to convert the monthly GL statements
from plain text/AFP printing to Postscript.
3) Open up the new central printing services to other users. The users
might send output files from application servers or from desktops.
The goal here is to encourage users to use the most cost effective
services for printing. Details are still being worked out re
the mechanism used to move the files from the originating platform
to IPM. Using an SSL Web interface for desktops looks attractive
but more work is needed on this code to support the Macs. Rocklyn
has been leading the charge on this one. MIT Kerberos staff and
others have been involved in these discussions. Since our timeline
has slipped, I'd rather not provide a bad time estimate for this
chunk of work.
4) Review the benefits and disadvantages of moving the management of
the distributed SAP printers from APS to IPM. We negotiated H/W &
S/W price reductions with IBM if we do decide to include these
printers under IPM's control. The pricing discounts allow us to
make this decision within the next six months.
5) Outside the scope of the delivery project but still of interest,
is a review and evaluation of moving to a single print management
system. This was a follow-on effort recommended by the discovery
project. Roger has accepted this task with no specific date for
the effort as of now.
I hope this helps clarify our current plans and the order in which
we plan to tackle the work. As you may be aware, I'm heading off
for three weeks of vacation this weekend thru Labor Day. As a key
stakeholder, I'd like to offer you an invitation to meet with the
team in my absence to answer questions and discuss any concerns you
may have. Our normal meeting time is on Mondays from 9:45-11:45
but we can meet with you at another time if this time slot doesn't
work for you.
Thanks for your interest and for staying in the loop, Theresa. We
greatly appreciate your feedback and your support!
-Dave
