8.1 Understanding the Benefits of High Availability Printing

Running iPrint on a cluster provides the following benefits:

  • By configuring the Print Management Database to reside on a shared disk cluster volume, you no longer need to replicate information to achieve high availability.

  • The cluster console GUI enables you monitor and control the location of cluster volumes with the Driver Store and Print Manager services using them from a single management workstation.

  • Because cluster volumes are tightly consistent and highly available, distributed print management tasks are simplified.

  • If a server fails, the cluster volume containing the Print Management Database and spool area automatically remounts on a surviving server in the cluster. The Driver Store and Print Manager also automatically restart without user intervention.

  • On restart, the Driver Store and Print Manager discover the Print Management Database on a cluster volume mounted on their server. Because the cluster volume is the same regardless of the server it is mounted on, no print-related information is lost or out-of-date.