Solution Overview

Installed in thousands of sites worldwide, iCONVERT™ is a powerful transform engine for AFP environments that functions most commonly in routing mainframe and AS/400 print reports directly to hundreds of networked desktop printers. This suite of products can also route reports to production PostScript printers, viewing stations and archive systems.

iCONVERT™ is unique print server technology that can run as a stand alone system or be integrated with the Solimar® Print Director™ Enterprise (SPDE). The system communicates with host systems and appears as IPDS devices or LUs. iCONVERT dynamically transforms AFP reports into a variety of other print languages and routes the resulting data to distributed network and production printers, archiving systems, and viewing stations.

The iCONVERT suite provides support for IPDS transforms to PCL, PDF, PostScript and TIFF data streams and print files. iCONVERT communicates with the AS/400 and mainframe host(s), appearing as IPDS printers receiving data via TCP/IP or SNA. The system operates as a Service under Windows®, and can run as a standalone print server or in conjunction with the Solimar® Print Director™ Enterprise (SPDE) for centralized print queue management. Conversion speeds can reach 6000+ pages-per-minute depending upon application complexity, network transfer speeds, and the Pentium print server specifications.

The AFP transform suite also provides dynamic routing of documents with optional job separation and file naming capabilities. Parsing, page counting, and dynamic naming of documents is supported with the Job Events Module.

NOTE: Although the term LU comes from the SNA world, it will still be use to describe a printer location for TCP/IP.

Product Specifications

• Emulates IPDS printers, supporting all IBM IPDS Towers
• GUI configuration for easy implementation and support
• Accepts LU1/SCS, LU3/DSC and IPDS input data streams
• Converts inline resources and print data dynamically
• Double byte font (DBCS) or Asian languages support: Chinese - Mandarin and Cantonese, Vietnamese, Armenian. These are also referred to as CJK fonts for Chinese, Japanese, Korean
• Output can be parsed, spooled, renamed and dynamically routed
• Supports page rotation, multiple paper sizes and duplexing
• Output can be scaled to fit page for non edge-to-edge printers
• Supports color
• Supports large file sizes (over 2 GB)
• HTML codes can be added to ASCII output
• Finishing commands can be customized to support any printer
• Supports the complete IBM font set
• Browser based monitoring
• Output formats include:

  • PCL

    - Composite "non-raster" output

  • PostScript

    - Composite "non-raster" output

  • TIFF

    - Multiple compression options

  • PDF

    - Type 1 and Type 3 font support

  • IPDS

    - Pass-through

  • ASCII

    - Supports any matrix printer (IBM ProPrinter)

• Appears to the host as printer logical units (LUs)
• Full bi-directional communication with the host
• Supports IPDS error recovery and error messaging on printed output
• Supports up to 512 destinations on one system
• Resource caching increases performance and reduces data transfer
• SNA connectivity includes:
  • Channel (BUS/TAG or ESCON)
  • Token Ring
  • Ethernet
  • SDLC
  • X-25
• TCP/IP connectivity includes:
  • lpr
  • FTP
  • "brick" protocol

• Parses and names files based on information within the data
• Deletes specified pages
• Extracts information to name files for archiving and operator tracking
• Enables load balancing across multiple devices
• Provides operator job control information for report distribution
• Can add Bookmarks and electronic overlays to PDF output

• iCONVERT™ Base System includes:
  • PCL
  • PostScript
  • PDF
  • TCP/IP connectivity
• Add-on Licensing
  • Distributed Print License
  • Supports printers up to 50 PPM
  • Midrange Print License
  • Supports printers up to 51-100 PPM
  • Production Print License
  • Supports printers over 100 PPM
• Optional Add-on Modules
  • Channel Input (BUS/TAG or ESCON)
  • 2D Barcode
  • Job Events Module
  • Type 1 PDF font substitution
  • TIFF output
  • Disaster Recovery license
• All modules are licensed separately.

PC Specifications

• OS: Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional, Server 2003 SP1 & higher, Vista Business or Ultimate, Server 2008, Windows® 7 Professional or Ultimate
• CPU: 2.4 GHz, Quad Core
• RAM: Minimum: 2 GB, Recommended: 4-6 GB as supported by hardware & OS
• HDD: 2 GB free disk space for software installation, formatted with Windows® NT File System (NTFS). Disk space requirements for processing data vary based on job size, volume, and application
• NIC: Ethernet network interface supporting the maximum speed of the network, preferably 1 Gb/s or greater
• USB Ports: 1 available port required if using physical license keys*
• Additional Software: Microsoft® .NET Framework 3.5