Newsletter - Document Management

Newsletter
Brakel, November 2013
Dear customer,
This newsletter informs you about the latest developments with regard to UniSpool
and PrinTaurus.
Holland House is doing very well in providing customers all over the world with
output- and printmanagement solutions. The targets of year 2012 have been
realized and the outlooks for 2013 are very promising.
A second life for MPE •
Holland House & world economics •
UniSpool V6.21 •
PrinTaurus •
DM and the Solipsis group •
IntraOffice •
Technical support •
During our customer tours we experience the following demands which are fully
covered by our solutions. IT Executives and managers are always looking for ways
to improve end user services, lower costs and deliver value to the enterprise. One
of the more surprising ways to lower costs and deliver value to the organisation that
is often overlooked is of the process of output handling and printing documents. In
customers reviews, IDC found that tens of thousands of dollars/euros were saved
by automated consolidated printing capabilities using UniSpool and/or PrinTaurus.
On top of that the thousands of documents printed out daily were efficiently
delivered through a management system which also provides visibility (PrinTaurus)
into document queues. This enables customers to troubleshoot and measure
downtime, capabilities that didn’t exist in customer environments prior to install
UniSpool and/or PrinTaurus software. Printer output was brought under control,
which simplified complex printing processes, lowered helpdesk costs and enabled
printer hardware consolidation.
We trust to provide you with useful information in this newsletter and to serve you
with our solutions in many years to come.
Kind regards,
Holland House b.v.
Goossen de Bruin
Managing Director
Johan Harmsen
software architect & support coordinator
GEME
NA
R M A TI
IntraOffice offers electronic archiving solutions for both bulk and
individual input of documents in all types of formats and files. These
electronic, well-secured, ‘public domains’ can be approached via
the web from any location in the world (with authorisation). Possible
other functionalities, which can be delivered are ‘notifications’
(messages that something is ready for you), ‘signing’ (adding legally
electronic signatures) and ‘unlocking of banks’ (linking a bank account
to the documents and/or the execution of a payment of a document).
Meanwhile, approximately 45,000 organisations use IntraOffice.
l
FO
oo
In our opinion Stromasys extends the life
cycle of MPE and its applications by many
years. It’s only a pity that this technology
was not available ten years ago, that would
have saved a lot of companies a lot of
migration efforts and costs.
Since 1984 a lot of experience has been gained in the world of EDM, as
a result of which a broad range of solutions is available for branches
in for example the industry, finance, insurance and ICT services.
Implementations can take place with a license or in SaaS (Software as
a Service). Dependent on the business case and the financial possibilities, custom made solutions can be used.
N
It took some effort to configure the network, but this was mainly because the last
time the network configuration on one of
our MPE systems changed was a long time
ago, and it took some time before the
details returned to memory. For example
you have to validate your configuration
after you make a change in NMMGR, if you
forget …
After completing a series of tests we
concluded that UniSpool works very good
in this environment, and that we therefore can support a UNISPOOL installation
running on the Stromays MPE emulator,
just like the version running on the traditional HP Precision Architecture hardware.
Within the business unit DM (Document Management) of the Solipsis group, two
companies are active. Since 1984 Holland House in the field of output- and
printmanagement solution with UniSpool and PrinTaurus. Since 1998,
this is the company IntraData for document- and archive solutions
with IntraOffice.
O
After completing the configuration, the
installation of UniSpool was a “piece of
cake”, created a couple of devices and print
requests were transferred happily back and
forth between our MPE, UNIX and Linux
servers, and from the virtual MPE environment to the printers. We have not noticed
any difference in behavior between the
version running on the original hardware
and the version running in the emulator.
UniSpool V6.21 functionalities; an impression
NT
When one of our customers, Beaumont
Hospital in Ireland, asked us for UniSpool
support in this environment, we decided
to try for ourselves. Stromasys provided
a freeware version of the emulator for
evaluation purposes. The emulator runs in
a standard RedHat Fedora VMWare virtual
machine, and is pre-configured with tools
to start the MPE emulation and access the
virtual MPE system. When the emulator
is started, a terminal window shows the
system console. A special terminal emulator, with block mode support, xhpterm,
is available on the desktop to access the
MPE system and configure the network via
NMMGR. Of course, more common
terminal emulators, like Reflection or
QCTerm, can be used instead.
IN
After many years of silence, finally
good news for the MPE ”homesteaders”. Stromasys, a Swiss
based company specializing in
virtualization solutions, extended
their Charon product, to provide
a new hardware foundation to
run existing MPE based applica­
tions. Stromasys’ solution virtua­
lizes the hardware of an existing
HP3000 system, and enables the
MPE/iX operating system, third
party applications, and userdeveloped software to run without
any modification whatsoever, on
industry­
-standard Intel servers.
The product, Charon/HPA3000,
translates the Hewlett Packard
Precision architecture instructions
on the fly to Intel CPU instructions,
it runs on 64 bit, Intel i7 and Xeon
processors.
DM and the Solipsis group
MA
A second life for MPE
U
p
S
i
n
In addition to EDM the Solipsis group has two other business units: one for the
development and maintenance of management information systems and another one for the
daily system management and monitoring of systems and networks, hard- and software project solutions
and the maintenance of business applications.
In spite of the different economic developments in
the world Holland House reports a sound growth in
2012 towards sales revenues and nett results.
The revenues of 2012 compared to the revenues of 2011 showed a
healthy growth of 10%. The first half year of 2013 compared with the first half
year of 2012 showed a growth of 4%. This is all due to the fact that our customer
base is spread all over the world and the customers are very loyal in using our output- and print management solutions. We are of course grateful for this loyalty. Around
200 installations of UniSpool and PrinTaurus are in use amongst others by 125 of the top 500
of the world largest companies.
New developments and support
Holland House invests every year between 12-15 percent of the sales revenues on improvements of the
software solution and intends to do that also for the next coming years. Besides that the support group of people
has been extended with one specialist. The support services for 24/7 customers grew by 20%. Especially customers
with worldwide operations ask for this kind of support.
The Internet Printing Protocol is a relatively new IETF standard describing the access to, and management of printers. UniSpool gets a
new driver, similar to the net- and PJL print driver to support this protocol as client. The most important feature of this driver is the
capability to send data encrypted to printers supporting this protocol. The driver has the capability to interrogate the printer to retrieve
the features supported by the printer, and will check if the requests options match the capabilities of the printer. For example a user
may request 4-up printing for a particular report, the driver will then check if the printer supports this is and if yes send the commands
to enable this feature before sending the data to be printed.
2 • Device configuration commands
Commands to add, modify or delete individual devices. This eliminates the overhead of loading the configuration for the whole cluster
as it is done currently through the utility config load command. These commands will become available in the utility program, the API
and as standalone programs.
3 • Scalability
The number of supported devices per UniSpool instance will be increased to 20,000. The number of concurrent print requests will be
increased to 150,000.
4 • Logging of extended attributes
The extended attributes added in will now also be stored in the activity log file. To support this the activity log information will be
stored in XML format. The current utility listlog command will still be used to for activity log reporting.
5 • New print request attributes
Mimetype - The mimetype of the print request.
Encoding - Character encoding (for example:US-ASCII, UTF-8).
Language - For example en.en-us, de or nl.nl-be.
The lp command will attempt to extract this information from the print request or attributes supplied with the print request.
The contents of these attributes may be used for further processing or viewing the print requests.
6 • Integration UniSpool in the SAP landscape directory
Automatically notify the SAP instance that a UniSpool client is active on a particular server in the SAP landscape.
IntraOffice saves money and effort in document handling
Holland House and the world economics
1 • IPP client support
In 10 European countries and estimated by 45,000 organisations the document management solution IntraOffice is in
use. Payroll and HRM servicebureaus, flexmarket services organisations, insurance companies: IntraOffice supports
all kind of application systems towards the document handling part. From creation to distribution and back. Internally
processed and/or via the web. IntraOffice handles it all. By piece, by thousands, by millions.
advantages
• Cost savings up to 65 % compared
with paper document distribution
• Sustainable because of reduction
of paper use and distribution
• Added value for customers and
other participants
• High performance, high secure and
high scalable
• Easy to integrate in complex
ICT infra structures
IntraOffice brings documents to life
7 • RPM installation package
Provide the UniSpool on Linux installation in the form of an RPM package.
8 • Rlp alternate hosts
Allow specification of one or more alternate hosts in the rlp command. If the first host is unavailable the next one will be attempted.
9 • Page count attribute in lp command
New command line option in the lp command to override the number of pages calculated by the lp command. Especially meant for use
from the SAP stsunisap interface.
We will be glad to supply more
information, call us: 0031 (20) 316 02 50
or learn more on our website
www.intradata.nl.
10 • Windows Integration for Windows 7 64 bit
Windows integration module for Windows 7 64 bit, including MSI installer.
+
11 • Liccodec enhancements
Make liccodec more user friendly, location independent, better error messages.
The print management solution PrinTaurus
Holland House technical support
Costsavings, transparency, reliablity and safety in company wide network and printing environments are good
reasons to use output- and print management solutions. One ‘single point of control’ is another good reason and
another good reason is the usage of one Gui for the whole Mainframe and Windows-, UNIX-, and SAP system
environments. The ‘cockpit’ shows all the important information of the printing infrastructure.
As a result of the PrinTaurus solution, the printing environment can be managed quite easily. In addition to this, system management
is able to monitor the complete printer and toner management with PrinTaurus.
comfort instead of complexity
The technical support staff of Holland House is available
to help you with any question about the installation and/
or usage of UniSpool and PrinTaurus. This includes
questions you may have about running UniSpool/
PrinTaurus in your environment. We do have a lot of
experience with different environments and can help you to
find the optimal solution for your specific needs.
Generally speaking support requests will be categorized in one of the
following three categories:
•Questions about the use of UniSpool/PrinTaurus. For example:
problems during installation or which command should be used to
perform a certain action;
•Questions about printing with UniSpool/PrinTaurus. For example:
a printer is not working or the print output is scrambled;
•Reports about bugs in the UniSpool/PrinTaurus software.
It is of course possible that a question posed as a problem in one
of the first two categories, ultimately boils down to an issue in the
software.
Questions on the use of UniSpool/PrinTaurus can usually be
answered the same day. Printing problems usually require more
information, the most recent releases of UniSpool/PrinTaurus
will provide with a script, errinfo.sh, which collects information
about the state of UniSpool/PrinTaurus and the system on which
UniSpool/PrinTaurus is running. The information in the output file
of this script, has proven to be extremely helpful during problem
investigation. In some cases, especially when a specific report
does not print correctly, we may request more information, for
example the file that fails to print or a network trace.
If a bug in the UniSpool/PrinTaurus software is reported or even
suspected, we will first try to reproduce this problem in our own
environment. Once the problem is confirmed and reproducible it
is handed over to the development department
to provide a fix. Obviously this will take time,
but we will keep you informed about the status
and the progress.
In most cases support is provided from our
office in Brakel, the Netherlands. If necessary,
and authorized, we can use a desktop sharing
tool, TeamViewer, to get access to your
system, and investigate the problem in a live
environment. On site support can also be
arranged.
Solution for mainframe print
The extensive control of printer
connections to mainframes is one of the
rich functionalities of the PrinTaurus
solution. Herewith, hostqueues and
devices such as printers, printservers,
E-mail or filing and printing jobs could
be performed directly by a computer or
host. The PrinTaurus Host Connector
plays a central role in this procedure as
it receives printing jobs from the mainframe of the CICS and JES programmes.
The printing jobs are directly forwarded
to Windows or Unix and vice versa.
Overview of the situation with ‘dashboard’
A very practical aspect of PrinTaurus
is the dashboard. It provides you with a
complete overview of all the important
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) of the
printing environment and has various drilldown functions for a rapid identification of
errors or solving errors. In the ‘cockpit’,
the information is combined: which printer
is online or offline. How much toner is
left? What is the content of the spooler?
Is there a queue with printing jobs? The
entire printing environment is visible
in the cockpit and can be controlled
and directed from this place.
Saving time due to automation
The PrinTaurus solution disposes of an
automation interface for directing printing
jobs and a central database for all information in the printing environment. This
database provides all the information of
the printing infrastructure, for example
configuration data from printing servers
and printers, user data or other relevant
economic business information. With the
PrinTaurus solution, IT engineers are able
to manage large printing infrastructures
worldwide in a professional way from
one Single-Point-of-Control.
Some of the many advantages:
• Redirections of prints is very easy;
• Quick respons to all kind of errors and
disruptions: a lower error rate and a
substantial saving of time for the IT;
• Starting from the same screen, with the
same ‘look and feel’, the entire outputand printmanagement environment is
monitored and maintained. Local and/
or international network structures
will not limit this construction;
• A major advantage of the total solution
is that management of printers can be
standardized and simplified in different
operating system environments. Very
fast printer implementations and configurations are possible;
• A very interesting function is the ‘follow
me’ function with which you, as a user,
are able to let your output appear
wherever you would like it to appear.
You can be assured that the Holland House
support team will do everything within
its power to make sure that UniSpool/
PrinTaurus operates smoothly in your
environment.
Left to right: Rob Eisink, Jos Broeren, André Bout and Johan Harmsen
The Holland House support team
Many UniSpool users apply the PrinTaurus
solution for the output- and printmanagement control of their Microsoft
and/or SAP environment as well. This is a
unique combination which lowers the
cost of printing and system management
substantial.
Holland House b.v. P.O. Box 3000 t: +31 418 57 30 00 i: www.hollandhouse.com Holland House, Solipsis, IntraData and VL IT Specialisten
The Netherlands
5306 ZX Brakel f: +31 418 57 30 60 e: [email protected] are subsidiaries of the Solipsis group.