Speeding up performance of NDPS with legacy print queues
Novell Cool Solutions: Question & Answer
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Q:
We're having trouble using NDPS to service our old legacy NDS print queues. It's soooooo slow and frustrating for our users. Any ideas for ways to tune it up?
A:
One option around a print queue is to use iPrint with the Novell iPrint client and use the ICAPTURE.EXE utility to capture LPT ports. That way the dependency upon legacy print queues is diminished. ICAPTURE.EXE shipped with iPrint client version 1.10 and later. For details on what ICAPTURE.EXE can do, please type ICAPTURE.EXE /? for a review of the ICAPTURE.EXE features.
Another thought is, the NDPS Manager has a database that it uses to store information for the manager. Information that is stored in the database includes print job data (info about the print job, but not the actual print job itself), load lines for the printer agents, pointers to printer drivers, data received from the gateway about printer characteristics, auditing information, etc. The NDPS Manager database is accessed frequently by NDPSM.NLM to retrieve and store this information. The NDPS Manager relies upon cache (the server's internal cache) for the speed of the database access.
If the file server is a multi-purpose server (file, print, email, etc.) and such a busy server that the server's caches are being flushed frequently (low LRU sitting times, etc.), then NDPS/iPrint can suffer sudden and extreme slowness as the server has to pull the NDPS Manager's database from disk as opposed to the database being in the server's cache. The performance will improve as the NDPS Manager's database becomes a part of the cache again. If the file server is very busy, it may be prudent to move the NDPS Manager to either a dedicated print server, or move print services to a less busy file server.
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