Spool Server

The spool server is an SAP application server that provides spool processing. It therefore requires at least one spool work process.

SAP Note 108799 in the SAP Service Marketplace explains how many spool work processes you should configure for each server.

A spool server processes the data for transfer to the spool system of the operating system. You can set up a spool server by adding the profile parameter rdisp/wp_no_spo to the instance profile of the corresponding server (Administration ® CCMS ® Configuration ® Profile Maintenance) and entering the desired number of spool work processes.

Setting or Changing Properties of a Spool Server

You can enter additional attributes and administration information for spool servers.

To do this, call transaction SPAD (Tools ® CCMS ®Spool ® Spool Administration), and, on the Devices/Servers tab page, choose the Spool Servers pushbutton. The list of defined spool servers appears. If you double click the relevant spool server, a window showing the attributes of the spool server appears.

The following example shows the attributes for a mass printing server:

You can enter or change the following attributes in this window:

· Server Name: You can enter a description of the spool server in the long field of the Server Name area.

· Server Class: Choose a suitable entry, depending on the intended use of the server, from the input options for the server class field, such as production printing, mass printing, and so on. The classification of the spool server helps you to realize your planned printing architecture, that is, to assign newly defined output devices to the corresponding spool server. If you specify the spool server in a device definition, the spool system compares the classification of the output device to the classification of the server. If they do not match, then the spool system warns you.

If you are preparing to assign a mass printer to a time-critical production server, then the spool system warns you of this disparity.

· Alternative server: You can specify a “replacement printer”, the alternative server, for a spool server. The alternate server takes over the processing of output requests if the original server is down or unavailable. For more information, see Alternative Server.

· Allow Load Balancing: You can define whether the output processing workload of a server may be distributed among its alternate servers. By default, load balancing is deactivated. Instead, the spool system ensures that output requests are printed in the order that they are generated.

· Logical server: You can define spool servers as logical servers. A logical server is a name that can, in turn, stand for one or more logical or real servers (a real spool server is a server that actually has spool work processes and can run in the SAP System).

Using logical servers, you can transport a complete printing architecture to another system with only minimal changes. To activate printing in the target system, you only need to edit the assignment of the logical server. You can do this using the Mapping field. For more information, see Logical Spool Servers.