Brooks Revs RPM to Bolster Production Printing

July 16, 2013 Alex Woodie

Organizations that print files through the latest release of Brooks Internet Software‘s Remote Print Manager (RPM) will benefit from higher load tolerances, more detailed logging, better scheduling, and the capability to allow third-party apps to control RPM processing and configuration, the Idaho Falls, Idaho, company announced this month.

RPM is a Line Printer Daemon (LPD) print server that provides flexibility in the management and handling of the print output of IBM i, mainframe, HP3000, OpenVMS, Unix, and Linux servers. The Windows-based software is commonly used to convert print output from native formats, such as SCS or AFPDS, to more widely used printer datastreams such as PCL and PDF. It can also distribute output to email and archives.

Brooks says it boosted RPM’s performance with version 6 by adding support for IP and LPR printing, thereby avoiding the Windows spooler and gaining better performance. The company also added remote access capabilities to the product, which gives administrators the capability to configure the product and monitor print jobs remotely.

Scheduling has also been improved with the inclusion of prebuilt policies that give administrators the choice of using balanced, first-in/first-out, sequential, or priority-based processing. The new version also adds drag and drop configurations between queues, which will allow administrators to recreate queues as needed.

Users can also give control of RPM processing to third-party applications. After a job arrives, RPM can let the application select the best way to process the job. RPM will allow the application to process the job based on content, origin, or database lookup, and execute the job in whatever way selected.

RPM version 6 will help organizations deal with print job failures by providing better management of print job work flow and “by providing fault tolerance for print drives and printer interruptions in general,” Brooks president Dave Brooks says. “We’re helping to reduce failed print jobs and user frustration, as well as saving time and money.”

RPM version 6 is available now. Pricing for the Select edition starts at $324, with support for up to 10 printers. The Elite edition is priced at $648, with support for up to 99 printers. Volume and government/education discounts are available from Brooks Internet Software and its worldwide network of reseller partners. For more information see www.brooksnet.com.