IBM United States
Software Announcement 200-228
July 18, 2000

Print Services Facility Version 3 Release 2 Delivers New Application Formatting Capability

ENUS200-228.PDF (42KB)

At a Glance

PSF V3.2 delivers new function to help you create more effective business documents.

A new type of page definition gives you more control and flexibility for formatting output from line-data applications.
Usability enhancements make problem diagnosis more productive.
- Enhancements make user exits easier to implement giving you more control over printer operations.
- Additional information in messages and separator pages helps you solve printing problems more easily.
- When the Infoprint^® Server for OS/390^® feature is used with PSF, PSF printers can be defined, changed, and deleted dynamically without affecting other printers.
Performance enhancements let you take better advantage of your OS/390 system resources.
- Improved OS/390 storage utilization lets you drive more AFP printers with less system resource.

For ordering, contact:

Your IBM representative, an IBM Business Partner, or IBM Americas Call Centers at 800-IBM-CALL (Reference: LE001).

Overview

Print Services Facility™ (PSF) and Advanced Function Printing™ (AFP™) have been adopted by S/390^® customers worldwide as the standard for high function, system-managed, production printing. One of the biggest benefits of AFP has always been its ability to provide rich formatting capabilities completely external to application programs. Users could change the appearance of customer statements, invoices, and other important customer contact documents just by printing them with different AFP resources.

Today, the documents you send to your customers have become an important part of your company's customer relationship management strategy. More than ever, it is important for them to be customized and personalized for your customer's individual needs. To meet these needs, the AFP architecture and PSF have been enhanced with new formatting capabilities that let you:

Design more effective customer documents
Customize the formatting of each customer's document based on its unique content
Save paper by avoiding unnecessary white space on pages
Use extra space on pages to include marketing messages

PSF and the associated S/390 program, Page Printer Formatting Aid (PPFA) have been enhanced to support a new kind of page definition. This new page definition lets you identify print records as being, for example, header records, subheaders, transaction records, or page footers. Formatting is then performed uniquely for each record type based on instructions in the new page definition. You can even paginate multipage documents in a variety of ways. The result is a customer document that presents what the customer needs to see in an attractive, effective format.

Remember, the documents you send your customers may be your most important contact with them to maintain and promote your relationship. Now, AFP gives you more power over those documents.

Key Prerequisites

PSF runs on the following S/390 hardware:

All Models of the S/390 Parallel Enterprise Server™
All Models of the S/390 Multiprise^® 3000
All Models of the S/390 Multiprise 2000
All Models of the IBM ES/9000^® Processor Unit 9021, 9121, or 9221
IBM ES/3090™-9000T Processors
PC Server S/390

PSF supports printing on IBM and non-IBM AFP/IPDS™ printers. All functions of PSF may not be supported by all IPDS printers.

Planned Availability Date

July 28, 2000

Description

What's New in PSF V3 Release 2?

PSF V3.2 for OS/390 delivers exciting new functionality that enables you to:

Create more effective AFP application output
Perform faster, more accurate problem diagnosis
Improve PSF utilization of system resources

New Application Support

PSF V3.2 offers a powerful new capability for formatting line-data output using AFP Page Definitions. This new function, called Page Definition Record Formatting, lets you identify each print record as a unique type and describe different formatting for each type of record. This gives you the ability to create a much more flexible, free-flowing electronic document than was possible with the existing Page Definition architecture.

A typical customer statement formatted using Record Formatting might have record types of "Statement Header", "Check Subhead", "Savings Subhead", "Check Transaction", "Savings Transaction", "Statement Footer", or other record types. Each record in the print file would be identified by a record header ID as belonging to one of the defined types. The associated Page Definition would describe how each record type is to be formatted, including spacing, font selection, margins for text formatting, running headers or footers, lines or boxes to surround the records, graphics, shading, page numbering, or other characteristics in black and white or in color.

This new Page Definition capability lets you create electronic documents from OS/390 line-data print output that has the appearance of documents created using sophisticated third party document formatting programs. It is supported by new commands in the Page Printer Formatting Aid (PPFA) (5688-190), via a PTF to APAR PQ37413.

Additional new application support in PSF V3.2 includes:

New mapping-table support in PSF to support Unicode fonts
Unicode is the information-processing, industry-standard character encoding that enables multilingual computing using a two-byte character representation. It is the emerging international standard for new programming languages such as Java™ and has been adopted by several major operating systems including Sun Solaris (UNIX^®) and Microsoft™ Windows NT™ and 2000.
A new mapping table in PSF is designed to work with the AFP Unicode Fonts PRPQ (5799-GHJ, RPQ 8A8087), which provides a set of AFP Unicode fonts that are based on the fonts contained in the AFP Font Collection (5648-B33). It enables printing of AFP application output in Unicode data format.
An AFP data-stream reblocking tool, AFRREBLK, in the Sample Library
In today's increasingly complex networked world, AFP data streams are created and exchanged among S/390 and midrange and PC systems every day. However, print files and AFP resources from PC and AIX^® systems must be reformatted before they can be used in S/390. The AFRREBLK tool converts AFP data from PC and AIX systems into the format required on S/390.
A color-mapping utility
Electronic documents are an important part of your Customer Relationship Management program. Often, they are the only regular contact you have with your customers. New applications using highlight color and full color attract the customer's attention and make a more effective impression in print. The color mapping utility supplied with PSF makes it easy to map color specifications in an existing application to new color spaces for more advanced color printers. The color mapping utility can map named colors for text or graphics into highlight colors for a "spot-color" printer or into full process CMYK or CIELab color spaces for a full-color printer.

New Support for Operations and Problem Diagnosis

AFP became a de facto industry standard for production printing because of its system-managed approach to the print process. In Release 2, new functions have been added to make your printer operators, system programmers, and HELP desk personnel more productive than ever.

PSF Installation Exit examples in C
PSF Installation Exits give system programmers the ability to tailor their AFP printing systems to meet unique application, security, or operational needs. In previous releases of PSF, user exits and sample exits provided with PSF were written in Assembler. Today, many more programmers know how to write C programs than Assembler programs. PSF exits can now be written in C. Examples of each type of exit, including specific code for popular functions, are also available in C to help you get your exits installed and running with a minimum of testing.
Options for handling printer errors
When a printer error such as a paper jam in the printer or postprocessing equipment occurs, PSF may have to reposition the print data set to resume printing at the correct location in the print job. How customers want to handle this situation depends upon the unique requirements of each operational environment. Some customers want the interrupt message page printed at the location in the print job where printing is restarted. Some customers want the printer to stop when an interrupt occurs, and a message to be sent to a printer operator console. Some customers want to terminate the job when such an error occurs. In Release 2, customers can now indicate via the PSF Message Exit exactly how they want this situation to be handled in their installation.
Printer names and EC levels in error messages
When print output is not generated as expected, determining the cause can be a complicated and time-consuming process. Which printer the output was printed on and what is the current EC level of that printer are important pieces of information needed for problem diagnosis. In Release 2, PSF and the IPDS architecture have been enhanced to collect information on the printer type and EC level from printers that support this new function, and return that information in PSF error messages. This is especially useful in distributed-print environments where printing is done on many different types of printers, which may have different EC levels installed.
Remote JES console support
The System Display and Search Facility (SDSF) in MVS™/JES2 systems provides information to monitor, manage, and control jobs, printers, queues, and resources from any terminal with an ISPF session. PSF documentation is enhanced in Release 2 to describe how you can use SDSF with PSF to provide remote management of your AFP printing system.
System ID on header pages
As OS/390 Server systems grow into multiprocessor complexes it becomes increasingly important to provide complete information about which processor in the system has produced a print job. In Release 2, PSF's header and trailer page exits have been enhanced to allow customers to choose whether they want the information on separator pages for printers running in an MAS (Multi-Access Spool) environment to print the System ID of the system on which the job was submitted, or that of the system on which it was printed.
Improved support for distributed-print
OS/390 and PSF together provide system and print services that make the OS/390 Server an ideal enterprise print-server solution. Many customers are now running thousands of AFP printers in distributed networks. PSF has been enhanced in Release 2 to increase the number of printers that can be configured to a single PSF Functional Subsystem (FSS). In addition, PSF has been changed to allocate storage for a printer only when that printer is actually started. Previously, PSF allocated some storage for all printers in an FSS, even if they were not in use. This change improves the efficiency of PSF in installations with large numbers of printers.
In addition, if the Infoprint Server for OS/390 optional feature of OS/390 V2.8 and later releases is installed and active, printers may be defined, changed, or deleted in the printer inventory dynamically without the need to stop and restart the FSS. This improves PSF's ability to meet the needs of rapidly changing distributed-print environments.
Easier migration from channel to distributed-impact printers
New support for IBM 6400 and other impact-distributed printers will be provided in the near future (APAR OW44363) to facilitate your migration from channel-attached JES printers to distributed-impact printers using PSF. Forms Control Buffers (FCBs) will be dynamically converted to printer commands to set page length, lines per inch, and channel location information directly from the FCB in existing JCL. No special printer resources or JCL changes are required. This lets you move your application output from channel-attached printers to printers on the LAN without changing existing operational controls.
New channel attachment support
PSF Release 2 includes support for AFP printers that can attach to an IBM S/390 Fibre Connection channel, FICON™. FICON supports a much larger bandwidth and higher data rate than current parallel and ESCON^® attachments and will allow more applications, including those containing image and color, to run at or near rated speed.

Year 2000

This product is Year 2000 ready. When used in accordance with its associated documentation, it is capable of correctly processing, providing, and/or receiving date data within and between the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, provided that all products (for example, hardware, software, and firmware) used with the product properly exchange accurate date data with it.

Euro Currency

This program is EuroReady.

For more information on the implications of the euro, visit the IBM euro Web site at:

http://www.ibm.com/euro

EuroReady Products

IBM considers an IBM product to be EuroReady if the product, when used in accordance with its associated documentation, is capable of correctly processing monetary data in the euro denomination and of respecting the euro currency formatting conventions (including the euro sign). This assumes that all other products (for example, hardware, software, firmware) that are used with this product are also EuroReady. IBM hardware products that are EuroReady may or may not have an engraved euro sign key on their keyboards.

Currently, EuroReady status applies primarily to IBM products specific to the EMU countries. Products that are not specific to these countries are deemed to be "not ready" for euro unless otherwise stated in the product's country-specific specifications.

IBM Hardware Ready

IBM supplies certain IBM products which include third party software (pre-loaded or not) and third party attached hardware. In these instances IBM is not in a position to assert that these third party products are, in themselves, EuroReady.

Therefore, such IBM products will be designated as hardware ready.

EuroReady Solutions

IBM considers a solution to be EuroReady when the solution providers have:

Analyzed the euro requirements, including the need to comply with relevant EC rules
Built in appropriate function

and can clearly demonstrate this by:

Detailing euro-related requirements
Describing how these will be implemented in the solution
Declaring when the implementation will be generally available

The euro capabilities of a EuroReady solution will be clearly identified as features of the solution specification as described in the contracts document.

Product Positioning

PSF provides IBM's strategic enterprise print support in OS/390. It supports AFP/IPDS printers ranging from under 10 to over 1,000 pages per minute, in both impact and non-impact technologies. Printers can be attached via channel or on TCP/IP or SNA networks.

Hardware and Software Support Services

SmoothStart™/Installation Services

IBM Installation Services can be provided for PSF by IBM Printing Systems Professional Services at an additional cost. For additional information, contact your IBM representative and ask for Installation Services for Print Services Facility V3 for OS/390.

Reference Information

For additional information on Print Services Facility, refer to Software Announcement 298-389 , dated October 13, 1998, entitled Print Services Facility Version 3 Delivers New Enterprise Print Capability.

Trademarks

: Advanced Function Printing, AFP, Print Services Facility, S/390 Parallel Enterprise Server, ES/3090, IPDS, MVS, FICON, and SmoothStart are trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation in the United States or other countries or both.
: S/390, Multiprise, ES/9000, System/390, Infoprint, OS/390, AIX, and ESCON are registered trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation in the United States or other countries or both.
: Microsoft and Windows NT are trademarks of Microsoft Corporation.
: Java is a trademark of Sun Microsystems, Inc.
: UNIX is a registered trademark in the United States and other countries exclusively through X/Open Company Limited.
: Other company, product, and service names may be trademarks or service marks of others.

Technical Information

Specified Operating Environment

Hardware Requirements

PSF runs on the following S/390^® hardware:

All Models of the S/390 Parallel Enterprise Server™
All Models of the S/390 Multiprise^® 3000
All Models of the S/390 Multiprise 2000
All Models of the ES/9000^® Processor Unit 9021, 9121, or 9221
ES/3090™-9000T Processors
PC Server System/390^®

PSF supports printing on IBM and non-IBM AFP™/IPDS™ printers. All functions of PSF may not be supported by all IPDS printers. Refer to your printer documentation for device capabilities.

The availability of external device names and EC levels in the enhanced PSF error messages requires an IPDS printer that supports return of that information to PSF in the applicable IPDS command stream. Your printer may require an EC to the control unit to perform this function.

Printers will require an EC and hardware upgrade to support FICON™ attachment.

Software Requirements

PSF runs in the following S/390 operating system environments:

OS/390^® V2 (5647-A01) with supported levels of JES2 or JES3
OS/390 V1 (5645-001) with supported levels of JES2 or JES3
MVS/ESA™ SP™ V5.2.2 with JES2 (5655-068) or JES3 (5655-069)

PSF V3 is required when the operating system level is OS/390 V2.7, or later.

The following system programs are required:

DFSMS/MVS^® V1.2.0, or later (5695-DF1) or DFSMS™ element of OS/390 V1 or V2
SMP/E 1.8.1 (5668-949) with PTF UR51070 or SMP/E element of OS/390 V1 or V2
Language Environment^® V1.5 for MVS/ESA 5.2.2, or the Language Environment element of OS/390 V.1 or V.2

OS/390 V1.3, or later is required to use the following features:

PSF exits written in C
Multi host feature for printers with an ESCON^® or FICON adapter

The following communication programs are required, depending upon printer attachments:

ACF-VTAM^® V4.3, or later supported release
MVS™ TCP/IP V3.2, or later or OS/390 e-Network Communication Server

If OS/390 V1.1 or 2 is used, TCP/IP must be upgraded by installing the MVS TCP/IP product at V3.2, or later.

For attachment of Infoprint^® 3000 and InfoPrint 4000 printers using TCP/IP, OS/390 V2.5, or later with e-Network Communication Server is required.

If TCP/IP V3.2 is used, PTFs associated with the following APARs must be applied:

PQ07866
PQ13154
PQ17052

If OS/390 V2.5 with e-Network Communication Server is used, PTFs associated with the following APARs must be applied:

PQ13154
PQ17052

One of the following is required to provide host fonts:

AFP Font Collection V2.1.0 for MVS and OS/390 (recommended). This version of the AFP Font Collection contains character sets and code pages to support printing of the new euro currency symbol. Program number is 5648-B33.
AFP Font Collection V1.1.0 (does not contain euro support)
The compatibility font optional nonpriced feature of PSF for OS/390 (does not contain euro support).

To define and manage PSF printers using the Printer Inventory, the optional Infoprint Server for OS/390 feature of OS/390 V2.8, or later is required.

New Record Format Page Definitions can be created using Page Printer Formatting Aid/370 (PPFA), (5688-190), with program maintenance applicable to APAR PQ37413. If ACIF is used to format line data with page definitions using the new record formatting, maintenance applicable to APAR PQ38247 is required.

Use of the AFP Unicode fonts with PSF requires the AFP Unicode Font PRPQ 5799-GHJ.

Compatibility: PSF V3.2 for OS/390 is upwardly compatible with PSF V3.1 and with PSF/MVS V2.2 (5695-040) with the following exceptions:

PSF V3 for OS/390 no longer includes the optional feature, Page Printer Migration Programs (PPMP). Customers currently using those programs should continue to use the program modules from PSF/MVS V2.2. The replacement product for PPMP is the XPort Services Offering on AIX^®. For additional information, contact IBM Printing Systems Professional Services at 303-924-6700, or contact your local IBM Printing Systems representative.
The API component of PSF/MVS V2.2 is no longer provided with PSF V3. It is functionally replaced by AFP Toolbox for MVS, (5655-A25). Customers using the PSF/MVS V2.2 API can continue to use their existing program modules.

User Group Requirements: This announcement satisfies or partially satisfies three requirements from one or more of the worldwide user-group communities. Groups include Australasian SHARE/GUIDE (ASG), COMMON, COMMON Europe, GUIDE International, G.U.I.D.E. Europe, Japan GUIDE/SHARE (JGS), Guide Latin American (LAG), SHARE EUROPE, and SHARE Incorporated, or customer requirements submitted in the NEWREQ Lotus^® application.

Requirement No.        Description
 
REQ00070150            Include SYSID of system on which
                        job was printed on separator page
REQ00076438            Allow PSF to stop printing when
                        duplicate pages may have been
                        printed (Interrupt Message Page
                        Action)
REQ00076536            Warning message is required before
                        printing when hardware error occurs

Planning Information

Direct Customer Support: Direct customer support is provided by S/390 Support Line. This fee service can enhance your productivity by providing voice and electronic access into the IBM support organization. S/390 Support Line will help answer questions pertaining to usage, how-to, and suspected software defects for eligible products.

Installation and technical support is provided by IBM Printing Systems Professional Services. For more information on services, call 303-924-6700.

Packaging: The PSF V3.2 base program and optional features are each shipped on separate tapes. No fonts are included on the PSF base tape. If the compatibility fonts are required, please be sure to order the compatibility font optional, no-charge feature.

Security, Auditability, and Control

PSF uses the security features and programs for OS/390. The customer is responsible for evaluation, selection, and implementation of security features, administrative procedures, and appropriate controls in application systems and communication facilities.

Customer Financing

IBM Global Financing offers attractive financing to credit-qualified commercial and government customers and Business Partners in more than 40 countries around the world. IBM Global Financing is provided by the IBM Credit Corporation in the United States. Offerings, rates, terms, and availability may vary by country. Contact your local IBM Global Financing organization. Country organizations are listed on the Web at:

http://www.financing.ibm.com

Ordering Information

Current Licensees

Current licensees of Print Services Facility™ V3.1 for OS/390 will be sent a program reorder form that can be returned directly to IBM Software Delivery and Fulfillment (SDF).

Reorder forms are scheduled to be mailed by August 11, 2000. Reorder forms returned to SDF will be processed within 10 workdays of receipt. When Release 2 is available, Release 1 will no longer be available.

New Licensees

Orders for new licenses can be placed now.

Shipment will not occur before availability date.

Unless a later date is specified, orders entered before the planned availability date will be assigned a schedule date of one week following availability.

Shipment will begin on the planned availability date.

New users of Print Services Facility V3 for OS/390 should specify:

         Type           Model
 
         5655           B17

Basic License: For detailed ordering information, refer to Software Announcement 298-389 , dated October 13, 1998, entitled Print Services Facility Version 3 Delivers New Enterprise Print Capability.

Customization Options

Unlicensed Documentation: A program directory for each PSF feature that is ordered, and one copy of the licensed publication for PSF and the features ordered is shipped automatically with the machine-readable material. For a detailed list of the PSF publications, refer to Software Announcement 298-389 , dated October 13, 1998.

Subsequent updates (technical newsletters or revisions between releases) to the publications shipped with the product will be distributed to the user of record for as long as a license for this software remains in effect. A separate publication order or subscription is not needed.

Support Line: Yes. Current charges are unaffected by this announcement.

Order Now

 Use Priority/Reference Code: LE001
 
 Phone:     800-IBM-CALL
 Fax:       800-2IBM-FAX
 Internet:  ibm_direct@us.ibm.com
 Mail:      IBM Atlanta Sales Center
            Dept. LE001
            P.O. Box 2690
            Atlanta, GA  30301-2690

You can also contact your local IBM Business Partner or IBM representative. To identify them, call 800-IBM-4YOU.

Note: Shipments will begin after the planned availability date.