Breaking Free from IPDS Silos: How iCONVERT Transforms Legacy Print Operations
For decades, organizations running mainframe and midrange systems have faced a persistent challenge: their IPDS print data remains locked in proprietary workflows, limiting flexibility and driving up operational costs. While IPDS (Intelligent Printer Data Stream) delivers reliable, high-quality output from IBM systems, it creates an isolated environment that prevents integration with modern print management platforms. iCONVERT changes this dynamic entirely, transforming IPDS data into versatile formats that work seamlessly with today’s production and distributed printing environments.
The Hidden Costs of IPDS Lock-In
Traditional IPDS workflows require specialized hardware for each printer—proprietary emulation cards that add complexity and expense to every device in your fleet. This hardware dependency creates multiple pain points for print operations. Maintenance becomes more complicated when technicians need expertise in both the printer mechanics and the IPDS interface cards. Scaling operations means purchasing additional hardware for each new printer. Perhaps most critically, organizations struggle to leverage modern workflow automation tools that could streamline their entire print production process.
Organizations running thousands of distributed printers understand these challenges intimately. They require reliable output from legacy systems, but also need the flexibility to dynamically route jobs, implement disaster recovery protocols, and manage their entire print infrastructure from centralized locations. The old model of point-to-point IPDS connections simply doesn’t scale to meet these demands.
Dynamic Conversion Without Compromise
iCONVERT takes a fundamentally different approach to IPDS conversion. Rather than rasterizing the data—which creates massive files and degrades print quality—the solution maintains non-raster composite output. This preserves the fidelity of the original IPDS data while creating files that are actually smaller than their source material. The software dynamically converts IPDS resources and print data as they’re received, intelligently caching resources to reduce network bandwidth and speed up processing.
The conversion process handles the full complexity of IPDS printing, supporting all IBM IPDS towers and their associated standards. Modern composition systems increasingly embed PDF object containers directly within IPDS data, and iCONVERT processes these seamlessly. Various page sizes, output rotations, color management, and finishing commands all translate accurately to the target format, whether that’s PDF, PostScript, or PCL.
Flexible Deployment for Every Environment
Organizations have different infrastructure requirements, and iCONVERT adapts to meet them. Some operations run the software directly on Windows-based printer controllers, eliminating the need for separate server hardware. Others install it on centralized Windows servers that manage output for hundreds or thousands of devices across multiple locations. For environments where performance is paramount, iCONVERT can run on dedicated servers, sending converted output to digital front ends (DFEs) for final processing.
This flexibility extends to the configuration process itself. Setup wizards guide administrators through the initial deployment, requiring only basic information about the host system, the desired output format, and the format for destination printers. Once configured, the solution runs as an automated service, quietly converting and routing print jobs without manual intervention.
Integration with Modern Print Workflows
The real power of iCONVERT emerges when IPDS jobs enter the broader print ecosystem. Freed from their proprietary format, these jobs can now flow through document re-engineering systems like Rubika, where operators can strip out barcodes, adjust imposition, batch similar work together, or add modern design elements, such as color logos and images, to legacy documents.
Advanced output management platforms, such as Solimar Print Director Enterprise (SPDE), take these converted jobs even further, enabling color conversions using ICC profiles, implementing sophisticated queue management, and optimizing PDFs for specific production requirements. Jobs that once required preprinted shells can now use electronic overlays, creating true white paper factory workflows that eliminate inventory management costs and enable instant design changes.
Real-World Impact on Operations
Consider a state agency managing benefits communications across hundreds of field offices. With iCONVERT deployed on just a handful of servers, they can automatically distribute IPDS print jobs to any printer in their network, regardless of manufacturer or model. When a primary printer goes offline, jobs automatically reroute to backup devices. The IT team monitors everything through SOLitrack dashboards that provide real-time visibility into job status, printer performance, and SLA compliance.
Manufacturing companies use iCONVERT to modernize their invoice and shipping document workflows. Legacy IPDS jobs from their ERP systems now flow through document re-engineering processes that add customer-specific branding, insert targeted marketing messages, and optimize the output for each recipient’s preferred delivery method—whether that’s high-speed production printing, desktop printing, or electronic delivery.
Moving Forward with Confidence
The transition from locked-in IPDS workflows to open, flexible print operations doesn’t require abandoning existing systems or rewriting applications. iCONVERT preserves all the reliability and quality that make IPDS valuable while removing the limitations that hold organizations back. With support for modern finishing commands, disaster recovery capabilities, and integration with contemporary print management platforms, it provides a clear path toward more efficient, cost-effective print operations that can adapt to changing business requirements.
Hello. Welcome to this session that provides a high-level overview of iCONVERT, and how unlocking your IPDS data can open up new opportunities to optimize your centralized and enterprise print operations. iCONVERT is our IPDS printer emulation solution that dynamically transforms IPDS data received from any application into a variety of output formats for driving printers and archiving systems that don’t natively support IPDS.
It’s configured with an easy to use interface that includes wizards to help guide users through the setup by simply selecting the type of host creating the output, and what the output format for the destination printer should be. As this session will cover, you can easily combine iCONVERT with other Solimar or third party solutions to enable many capabilities beyond just the printed output.
Once iCONVERT is configured, it typically runs lights out as an automated solution for the conversions driving your output devices. Whether they’re high-volume production printers or distributed printers, it can run on Windows based printer controllers or centralized systems, and is highly scalable to support environments with many printers to drive. For example, we have state agencies that drive thousands of printers across their offices, from just a handful of iCONVERT servers that provide automated distribution and fault tolerance for their IPDS print output.
Here’s what the deployment options look like to support companies that will have different goals related to configuration methods and performance scenarios. The top line shows how iCONVERT can be used to drive printers directly, without the need for a DFE or digital front end on the printer, providing the printer can accept a native print data stream such as PostScript, PDF or PCL. The middle configuration shows iCONVERT installed directly on a Windows based DFE. This negates the need to purchase new hardware to run iCONVERT. And the bottom line shows iCONVERT installed on the server and sending the output to DFEs for applications where the performance and flexibility is paramount. Most often iCONVERT is installed on Windows servers, but you can also install it directly on Windows based printer controllers to avoid having a separate server.
IPDS conversion solutions often only connect with a single output device or require hardware for each printer. Not only can iCONVERT support more than one device, it can support hundreds or even thousands of devices without the need for proprietary IPDS emulation cards in each printer, which provides for easier maintenance and management of your IPDS workflow. iCONVERT can print to virtually any printer, they just need to support PDF, PostScript, or PCL. iCONVERT is ideal for driving high-speed production printers in a centralized print environment. It also handles distributed output across an enterprise with hundreds or thousands of desktop printers equally as well. This makes it a great solution for any organization needing mainframe or midrange host output management. We have case studies on our website that highlight customer successes there.
iCONVERT frees IPDS jobs out of the workflow silo to open up a lot of possibilities for these applications. Once they’re not locked into a point-to-point workflow, these jobs can now be integrated and managed with the rest of your output, such as production dashboards, SLA management, post-processing, job scheduling, running on different printers and finishing equipment, and so on. You can also move the work to different types of printers to support redundancy and backup across printers and your facilities.
As you now know, iCONVERT emulates IPDS printers, and converts IPDS to other formats. Some specific functionality advantages iCONVERT provides with the conversions include support for all of the IBM IPDS towers, which are the many standards related to printing IPDS. It supports non raster composite output, which provides for smaller output file sizes and better fidelity than the systems that rasterized the IPDS data when doing the conversion. As the IPDS is received, the online resources and print data are dynamically converted to the output formats. If the resources are cached, then iCONVERT will let the host know so that the resources are not reset with each job, which then reduces the network bandwidth and makes for smaller file transfers from the host.
It also has you covered with the various formatting requirements your IPDS jobs may have related to finishing, such as various page sizes, output rotations, and color. A few other conversion related features that can be important include support for PDF object containers within the IPDS print data. This is becoming more popular with modern composition systems and the adoption of PDF workflows, where PDF files are directly embedded within the IPDS data.
The command and control finishing on the printer can be customized for each target device and their support for various types of IPDS that you may have running on legacy systems, along with many features to control how the output files are created. Once outside of the IPDS silo, there are a lot of possibilities for these jobs. iCONVERT gives your IPDS print work access to modern production printing platforms. Host jobs can now be managed the way that other jobs are managed to gain workflow efficiencies.
So here you see workers handed off to document re-engineering and output management systems all been tracked and managed by a dashboard. For Solimar, these pieces are Rubika for re-engineering, SPDE for advanced output management and transformations, and the SOLitrack visibility dashboard. Document re-engineering allows for stripping work of specific features like barcodes and imposition, then optimizing them to create final output for whatever production workflows needed. Organizations use this to batch like work together, add color, logos, images, and more to legacy documents, and then output them to any device or production line they choose. Re-engineering gives your operations the power and control over how, when, and where work is produced. After document re-engineering, jobs can be handed off to advanced output management systems like the Solimar Print Director Enterprise or Speedy. This enables conversions from and to a wide variety of print data formats, powerful queue management, color conversions using ICC profiles, tracking and accounting, ReadyPDF, which is our powerful PDF optimization engine and much more.
Managing cut sheet print jobs that call for inline finishing like tray pulls, jogging, or stapling can be very tricky. iCONVERT can handle many of these finishing translations by itself, but if that’s not enough, SPDE and Rubika can help by adjusting almost every type of finishing information, they can then add, remove, or modify and then output them to about any other method. Using Rubika, we can add finishing commands to files that never even had them, or even convert existing finishing commands into barcodes to drive offline finishing processes. This is key for moving work from one cut sheet device to another, splitting jobs across different cut sheet devices, and for reprint workflows. Using document re-engineering, operations can be processed as old mainframe jobs to work with modern white paper factory workflows, replacing preprinted shells with electronic overlays.
The white paper factory workflow streamlines and requires very little human intervention. This saves a lot of money on things like warehousing and management of inventory of preprints. White paper factory workflows are great for disaster recovery or overflow printing to another white paper factory, as it removes the dependency of inventory management and preprinted stocks. Reprints are simplified since unlimited changes can be made to digital preprints without the hassle expense of physically pre-printing.
Visibility and tracking of jobs data through the operation has become more important than ever. SOLitrack, which is our dashboarding solution, tracks everything iCONVERT and all other Solimar and third-party products are doing. It can also track manual processes, tracking jobs, gathering job metrics in a database, enabling advanced troubleshooting and historical reporting. It gives your operations a leg up on their competitors, ensuring that fast turnaround times and conformance with your SLAs. Aside from SPDE, or Speedy, you can add SOLitrack to the workflow to provide a dashboard that tracks the files that have been processed, along with JDF/JMF support for your printer management and feedback, job scheduling, secure transfers, batching, SLA management, and more. Sure, iCONVERT allows non-IPDS printers to print jobs for mainframes, but it enables so much more than that. iCONVERT is a flexible, cost effective solution that allows IPDS output to break free from its silo, opening up a whole new world of possibilities.
So, although iCONVERT‘s purpose can be summarized simply as that it converts IPDS data to other formats and enables all sorts of other workflow related opportunities and cost savings. With Solimar, you have a complete platform for converting and managing AFP related workflows. You still have all the benefits of AFP, but in a more open, enhanced overall solution platform.
Thank you for your time. We hope you found this session helpful, and feel free to reach out to us with any questions.
