ssolberg
VIP Member
CreateForm Printing \"long distance\" and response time
We've run across a response time issue with printing CF documents that has me stumped. I have also talked with BT support and not really getting anywhere so I'm polling the list. Here is how things are setup.
Our CF server is local (to me) and is used to merge lots of forms and split them out to printers in a variety of places that are local and "farther away". There is no issues with the printing speed to any of the local printers.
We recently implemented a bunch of forms for one of our companies which are very similar to existing forms we do for other companies but they are farther away on the network. In the merge/print setup side of things, stuff goes into DIRECTOR and the project decides where to print it. All the printers are setup as direct IP address accessed printers (standard IP port). So something comes into DIRECTOR and then (for example), 100 checks head to the printer. Locally, things start printing right away no problem. In the same scenario to the far away printer, the 100 checks go to the printer and the user reports that it will print a check, wait about a minute, print another, etc. From my end, it also shows the checks "slowly" headed to the printer.
So BT support suggested that I setup a LPR port for the printer on the local server to ship the "100 checks" to another server at the far away place, then have that queue pointed directly to the printer and let it pass them on. Sounds do-able so I set things up and we did some testing. It works but no the response time issue is "different". Indeed all 100 checks go in the local LPR printer queue right away and it promptly ships 10 (yes 10) checks over to the other queue and those 10 print quite quickly. On the local end though, it waits for awhile, then sends another 10, and the process goes again. So it isn't solving the problem, it just changed. I can watch the queues and it will send the 10 over just fine but for a period of time, none are getting sent over and the other queue is empty waiting for more. This is happening with a variety of forms so it isn't something about the form in particular.
BT is not really helping at this point and don't know how to "blame the WAN" for the problem either.
Anyone got any ideas or other solutions? Users are pulling hairs out...., they have runs of 500+ checks/deposit slips/etc that end up taking hours to get all printed.
We've run across a response time issue with printing CF documents that has me stumped. I have also talked with BT support and not really getting anywhere so I'm polling the list. Here is how things are setup.
Our CF server is local (to me) and is used to merge lots of forms and split them out to printers in a variety of places that are local and "farther away". There is no issues with the printing speed to any of the local printers.
We recently implemented a bunch of forms for one of our companies which are very similar to existing forms we do for other companies but they are farther away on the network. In the merge/print setup side of things, stuff goes into DIRECTOR and the project decides where to print it. All the printers are setup as direct IP address accessed printers (standard IP port). So something comes into DIRECTOR and then (for example), 100 checks head to the printer. Locally, things start printing right away no problem. In the same scenario to the far away printer, the 100 checks go to the printer and the user reports that it will print a check, wait about a minute, print another, etc. From my end, it also shows the checks "slowly" headed to the printer.
So BT support suggested that I setup a LPR port for the printer on the local server to ship the "100 checks" to another server at the far away place, then have that queue pointed directly to the printer and let it pass them on. Sounds do-able so I set things up and we did some testing. It works but no the response time issue is "different". Indeed all 100 checks go in the local LPR printer queue right away and it promptly ships 10 (yes 10) checks over to the other queue and those 10 print quite quickly. On the local end though, it waits for awhile, then sends another 10, and the process goes again. So it isn't solving the problem, it just changed. I can watch the queues and it will send the 10 over just fine but for a period of time, none are getting sent over and the other queue is empty waiting for more. This is happening with a variety of forms so it isn't something about the form in particular.
BT is not really helping at this point and don't know how to "blame the WAN" for the problem either.
Anyone got any ideas or other solutions? Users are pulling hairs out...., they have runs of 500+ checks/deposit slips/etc that end up taking hours to get all printed.