Like many large enterprises, the customer is an organization with a highly complex IT infrastructure. Their five main IT partners were responsible for business critical printing from SAP applications as well as regular Windows printing. Two hardware vendors, two IT Outsourcers (ITOs) and one telecommunications provider provided global desktop/print infrastructure, MPS, SAP as ‘Software as a Service’, SAP application consultancy as well as global WAN and communications. One of the hardware vendors was responsible for managing the customer’s 265 Windows print servers and approximately 23,000 printer queues. More than 30 dedicated resources were on hand to support the print environment.

SAP application printing plays an important role in key business processes. The SAP application was (and still is) hosted in a datacenter in Germany. Upon submission, SAP print data would be sent from the datacenter to an LPR spooling daemon running on two clustered IBM AIX servers. These two servers were located in a datacenter in the Netherlands. Both of these servers were due for update or replacement, as they were no longer supported.

In the next step of the print process, the SAP print data was spooled across the WAN to the 265 Windows print servers. This landscape was plagued with multiple points of failure. Firstly the Windows print servers and Windows print queues were managed by a hardware vendor, whereas a separate ITO was responsible for managing the SAP and AIX print queues. With no SLA in place, the ITO could not be held accountable for resolving problems within a given timeframe.

Furthermore, when an SAP print failure occurred, the call was typically logged with the hardware vendor, who would then forward the ticket to the ITO for troubleshooting. Meanwhile, the end user had no way to check the status of their print. Though the ITO was in charge of troubleshooting, they would be unable to resolve the issue if the print failure was a result of a printer being unavailable. In this case, the ticket would be sent back to the hardware vendor.

This complex, time-consuming helpdesk environment wasted time and effort, as valuable IT resources were left to investigate hardware-related issues outside of their areas of responsibility.

These inefficiencies significantly impacted work processes at major refineries around the world. Fuel shipments came to a standstill if the required transportation documentation was not printed. In some countries, fuel tankers cannot even leave the depot without proper paperwork. If trucks had to wait for documents, they risked being stuck in queues, leaving their end customers to seek other suppliers for timely delivery.

BUSINESS BENEFITS

• Centralized management of SAP print queues (add, modify, delete, re-direct).
• Centralized SAP print capture and direct delivery to the end user print device without the need for distributed print servers. The new SAP Print Management system spools SAP print data directly to print devices via the centralized VPSX print spool and associated VPSX print queue.
• Centralized end to end visibility and management of the SAP print process.
• Automated end-user notification of successful SAP print delivery.
• Automated monitoring of critical events.
• Resolved reliability, administration, feedback, diagnostic and routing issues.

KEY DELIVERABLES

• Centralized SAP print delivery and print queue management.
• VPSX Enterprise and VPSX/OutputManager replaced the AIX cluster and Windows Print Servers.
• Un-interrupted availability of the print service is provided via SAP LRSQ /AltServer submission to a second VPSX system.
• Device outages are handled by a VPSX “divert to alternate” printer.
• All output from non-production SAP systems are marked with a “Test Print” overlay to prevent test documents being mistaken for live production documents.

Learn how LRS solutions can add value to your print service providers. Visit LRSOutputManagement.com/ to learn more.