I hope that my thoughts from being a user, designer, and implementer at an
enterprise may add to this conversation. I have installed thousands of
devices, and designed and implemented multiple types of printing systems on
different operating systems.
Enterprise expectation - a print job sent from any user to any device will
have a consistent appearance, regardless of driver type, operating system,
or originating application.
Printing system efficiency. Since a low percentage of operations requiring
print run on a 24/7 basis, current print systems are idle and unused a
significant portion of the time. Trying to virtualize the servers conflicts
with lowering bandwidth usage by having servers located near the printers.
The level of effort to add print devices/queues, maintain driver currency
(across multiple servers), and monitor print activity is significant. At an
enterprise level print servers are expensive when looking at requirements
for redundancy, multiple connections, monitoring tools, and governance
requirements.
Print connections used - direct IP from workstation, Windows Print servers
using 9100 socket or LPR/LPD, several direct Unix print methods, Novell,
Apple, AS/400 and Z/OS both direct and via print servers. Very few
connections were IPP (mostly due to security requirements on server). Many
printers were part of a fan-in (multiple systems) or fan-out (reporting
systems, workflow, audits). Multiple uses of print server to print server
to meet network segmentation requirements for incoming and outgoing print
connections (passing through VPN and a DMZ).
Push and pull type printing - need to be able to initiate the job transfer
from either end, either scanning from device, or printing initiated from the
"cloud". If an application is hosted in the cloud, and generates scheduled
output, need to be able to route without user for day end reports,
transactions, etc.
The definition of cloud printing varies depending on perspective or
position. If I host a print server at Amazon (typical Windows 2008r2 with
drivers), with printers attached over the network, have I created a cloud
solution? I'm working on the spreadsheet of offerings I have tested, will
have it posted prior to meeting next week.
I can provide specifics on any of the items above. I'm thinking about
Michael's request.
Larry Upthegrove
From: cloud-bounces at pwg.org [mailto:cloud-bounces at pwg.org] On Behalf Of Ron
Nevo
Sent: Tuesday, December 13, 2011 11:27 AM
To: Zehler, Peter; cloud at pwg.org
Subject: [Cloud] RE: Cloud Print binding to IPP
Hi Pete
Thanks for your efforts.
We will add this subject to our next cloud meeting on Dec 19th
Thank You,
samsung
Ron Nevo | Senior Manager | Product Marketing
Partners, Solutions, Information Security, MPS, Standards and Certifications
Chair IEEE/ISTO Printer Working Group-Cloud Imaging
Samsung Electronics America, Inc.
Enterprise Business Division
85 Challenger Road | Ridgefield Park, NJ 07660
P 201.329.6231
C 201.220.5945
<http://www.samsung.com/business> samsung.com/business
cid:image002.jpg at 01CC9A38.0B83E0E0
Learn about our Solutions at <http://www.samsung.com/us/printersolutions/>
http://www.samsung.com/us/printersolutions/
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From: cloud-bounces at pwg.org [mailto:cloud-bounces at pwg.org] On Behalf Of
Zehler, Peter
Sent: Tuesday, December 13, 2011 8:34 AM
To: cloud at pwg.org
Subject: [Cloud] Cloud Print binding to IPP
All,
I would like to see an IPP binding for Cloud printing. I see a significant
advantage to an IPP based solution given the maturity of the protocol and
the industry wide support. I experimented with a cloud based print service
back in 2009. I based my experiments on a WS-Print binding but an IPP
binding would also work. I switched the binding from WS-Print to PWG SM and
included it in v1.160 of the PWG SM Schema. It is easier for me to write
Schema than IPP and easier to display. It is not difficult to move between
the two mappings. The issues I did not address include an environment
agnostic registration and a common security model.
For clarity I will refer to the Cloud based Printers as Queues and the
devices as Printers even though in the IPP model they are both
implementation of IPP Printers. In v1.160 of the PWG Semantic Model Schema
I included two files (i.e., PwgCloudPrintQueue.wsdl and
PwgCloudPrintQueueMsg.xsd) that have some of the operations fleshed out a
bit. (I dropped a couple things moving from WS-Print to PWG SM.)
I had a couple of assumptions going in.
I believe that Queues and Printers contain Jobs and are stateful. There is
an association between the Jobs in a Queue and the Jobs being printed on a
Printer. A mapping between them should be maintained on both sides and
carried explicitly in the protocol. I do not believe we should be
implementing "remote markers" where Jobs only reside in the Cloud. It
should be possible for either side to use IPP operations to query the state
of the Printer/Queue and their Jobs.
I believe it is a requirement that the Cloud Print model must support both
Fan Out and Fan In. In other words it should be possible for a single Cloud
Queue to act as a proxy for other Cloud Queues. This will allow a Printer
to interact with a single Cloud Queue but still service jobs in multiple
Cloud Queues. Taking this approach allows you to do things such as set
different default behaviors for Queues that all map to the same Printer.
(The User does not need a Job Ticket since the intent is associated with the
various Queues.) This approach also allows you to enforce different
capabilities for different users. Users have permission to use specific
Queues. The Queues could prohibit color printing or limit the size of a
Job.
It should also be possible for one Printer to interact with a Queue and
forward Jobs to other Printers. For example a Printer in an enterprises DMZ
could forward jobs to internal Printers or a software only Printer could
front end legacy devices (i.e., proxy).
The way I broke the processing of Cloud Jobs up was; Check for Work, Lock
the Job, Update the Job Status, Retrieve the Document(s), and Finish the
Job. I also had another group of things that include; synchronization of
Printer and Job state, Firewall Traversal, Moving from Poll Driven to Event
Driven, and Eventing.
Check for work:
The Printer should be event driven when processing Jobs. See below for a
discussion on eventing. The printer should query the Queue for available
work.
The Operation IsThereAnyWork
<http://www.pwg.org/mfd/navigate/PwgSmRev1-160_ServiceOperations.html#Link10
36>
is used by the Printer to ask a Queue to see if any work is available. The
request contains a list of DestinationServiceUuids (i.e. printer-uuid) where
the Jobs will be printed. The response will have a list of work entries.
Each entry contains the SourceServiceUuid, DestinationServiceUuid (missing
in schema) and a list of Job ids. I used a UUID instead of an ID but as
long as the source Queue is identified either would work.
Lock the Job:
Once a Printer has determined the job it will process, it sends a
DeQueuePrintJob operation
<http://www.pwg.org/mfd/navigate/PwgSmRev1-160_ServiceOperations.html#Link10
35>
to the Queue. This operates a little differently than CreateJob in that
the Printer Job identifier needs to be reserved until the operation
succeeds. If the operation fails or times out the identifier and any
allocated resources are discarded. The request includes the identifiers for
the source and destination Queue/Printer and Jobs. The response contains
the number of documents in the job as well as some job information such as
the job name and owner. Although not included a JobTicket should be passed
in the response as well. The payload of the response should closely match a
CreateJob operation. We may also want to consider passing a JobTicket by
reference which IPP does not permit at this time.
Update the Job Status:
Event notifications are used to keep the state of the Job, Document and
Service updated. I used WS-Eventing but an IPP notification method can be
substituted. See eventing discussion below.
Retrieve the Document:
The Printer retrieves the documents to process using the Retrieve Document
operation
<http://www.pwg.org/mfd/navigate/PwgSmRev1-160_ServiceOperations.html#Link10
38>.
The request identified the source Service, Job and Document number. The
response includes the document number and a flag to indicate if it is the
last document. Other information such as a Document Ticket or the
DocumentFormat can also be included. Since the Printer does not know if the
document will be pushed or pulled it must be ready to accept a DocumentUri
or Document Content in the response. I used MTOM but IPP already has an
acceptable encoding. It is most efficient to use print by reference
whenever possible.
Finish the Job:
Once the Job has been printed the final update of the Job is done. Note
that events are used to handle updates as the Job is being processed. The
CompleteDequeuePrintJob operation
<http://www.pwg.org/mfd/navigate/PwgSmRev1-160_ServiceOperations.html#Link10
34>
request contains the Source and destination Queue/Printer and Jobs and the
details of the Destination Job. Included is The JobState, any
JobStateReasons, DateTimeAtCompletion and the ImpressionsCompleted. The
PrintJobReceipt can also be included.
Synchronize Printer/Queue state,
Synchronize Job state,
Moving from Polling to Event Driven
Firewall traversal
Eventing:
This nice thing about outbound (i.e., Printer to Queue) eventing in a Cloud
environment is that no event subscription needs to be sent. The Printer
knows the Queue is interested in Printer and Job events. Either a
well-known listener port can be used or the location can be part of
registration. Since the Printer knows which jobs came from the Cloud it can
filter the Job events. Whenever a Printer is initialized a printer state
event should be sent to its registered Queues. If the content of the event
is insufficient then a one way message that looks like a
GetPrinterAttributes operation response could be used.
In order to move from a poll model to an event driven model we need a
mechanism to traverse the firewall. I originally used a hacked together
HTTP trickle protocol. A standardized protocol such as XMPP can be used
instead. The PWG can create PWG specific stanzas that map to existing IPP
operations such as GetPrinterAttributes, GetJobs or GetJobAttributes. A new
stanza would be needed to let the Printer know it's time to send an
IsThereAnyWork operation to a Queue.
Registration:
I did not do anything with registration other than put in a place holder.
The RegisterPrinter operation
<http://www.pwg.org/mfd/navigate/PwgSmRev1-160_ServiceOperations.html#Link10
37>
request contains some Printer information such as the identifier for the
Queue and the Printer. It was not clear to me if the existence of a Queue
is a prerequisite or a result of the operation. The Printer information
would also include the PrinterCapabilities that we recently defined in the
Job Ticket work. This contains the defaults, capabilities and document
generation information. I included some "Agent" information. I assumed
there would be some security information exchanged so I just put a
placeholder there.
Comments?
Peter Zehler
Xerox Research Center Webster
Email: <mailto:Peter.Zehler at Xerox.com> Peter.Zehler at Xerox.com
Voice: (585) 265-8755
FAX: (585) 265-7441
US Mail: Peter Zehler
Xerox Corp.
800 Phillips Rd.
M/S 128-25E
Webster NY, 14580-9701
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