Printing CICS or IMS output data on network printers

A large international manufacturing company recently has configured a LAN and has purchased network printers to replace its coaxially-attached SNA printers. This company wants to print inventory control reports from its CICS® and IMS™ applications to the network printers, instead of to its usual set of SNA printers. The company wants to route the reports to one or more remote locations, such as warehouses, docks, and the plant floor, while taking advantage of the security, accounting, and recovery capabilities of z/OS.

Here is how this company can use the Infoprint Server components to meet its requirements:

1. The CICS or IMS applications submit print requests by using VTAM® in the same way as they submit print requests to SNA printers. No changes to the CICS or IMS applications are necessary.
2. The NetSpool component intercepts the print requests and creates output data sets on the JES spool, using JES output parameters defined by the administrator. The JES output parameters specify routing information that IP PrintWay™ uses to transmit the output to a particular network printer.
3. The IP PrintWay component transmits the output data sets from the JES spool to one or more network printers on the TCP/IP network. The z/OS® IP security function can encrypt the data.

Figure 2 shows how Infoprint Server directs the data to network printers.

Figure 2. Printing CICS or IMS output data on network printers