Ricoh InfoPrint Pro C900AFP Planning Guide - Page 22

v Hard disk speed v Number of hard disk drives v Balance of InfoPrint Manager data sets across available disk drives v Tuning specifications for hard disk drivers v Paging space allocations (drive locations and size) v Number of data paths (single or dual) The output devices that InfoPrint Manager drives are also important: v Speed and resolution of printers or other output devices v Number of output devices operating concurrently v Number of output devices per actual destination Finally, how you submit print jobs to each InfoPrint Manager server is important: v Number of client systems submitting jobs v Frequency of job submission from client systems v Speed of network data transfer v Size (density) of jobs to be printed v Complexity of jobs to be printed v Number and types of input data streams v Overall network traffic Sizing your InfoPrint Manager environment is a complex task. It might be impossible to determine in advance precisely how many Windows and AIX systems will adequately serve your printing needs. Note: You can run only one InfoPrint Manager server on a Windows system. A dedicated InfoPrint Manager for Windows system that meets the Minimum recommended hardware requirements (see "Server hardware prerequisites" on page 33 for details on hardware configurations) can drive one InfoPrint 4000 ID3/ID4 printer at rated speed (1002 pages per minute) with simple text data. This is a very specific benchmark. Each additional device you attach to a server causes considerable network overhead and processor overhead. Your InfoPrint Solutions Company sales representative can help you determine if you have enough physical printing devices to address the printing needs of your enterprise. Essentially, this is a question of how many pages of output must be produced in how much time. Your estimate of printed output, combined with the rated speeds of your print devices, should give you the information you require to guide printer purchases. Determining how many servers you need to drive your printing devices, however, requires experimentation and patience. Consult with your InfoPrint Solutions Company Sales Representative to agree on a reasonable number to start with. We recommend setting up your environment one server at a time, one printer at a time. (Draw diagrams similar to those in "Understanding destination configuration models" on page 15, but realize that these diagrams are subject to change.) After adding each printer to a server, do a stress test. Try to drive the printers at rated speed with the types and number of jobs expected during peak periods. Also, try to have the server system perform all other activities it will have to do while processing the jobs. In short, make your stress test as realistic as possible. If the server system handles the work load without a problem, consider attaching an 6 InfoPrint Manager for Windows: Introduction and Planning Guide