System for managing digital printers and servers via a network
View Patent ↗In a network comprising printers and print servers which retain queues of print jobs, a user is able to survey and view selected portions of the network, either by enumerating printers to be queried directly, or by enumerating servers. By providing substantially simultaneous “views” of printers and queues in servers, problems within a large network can be readily isolated.
1. A method of operating a plurality of printers and a plurality of servers on a network, each printer and server having a network address, each server holding a print queue, comprising:
surveying an operational status of each printer, by directly addressing the printer's network address;
for each surveyed printer, identifying a plurality of queues on the network associated with the printer;
surveying an operational status of each of a plurality of servers, by directly addressing the server's network address, wherein surveying an operational status of each server includes determining a server on the network associated with each identified queue;
substantially simultaneously displaying a result of the surveying step of the printers and a result of the surveying step of the servers;
directly querying one selected printer;
determining queues associated with the selected printer, and then identifying servers associated with each queue associated with the selected printer; and
querying the identified servers, thereby isolating a malfunction among the surveyed printers and servers.
2. The method of claim 1 , wherein surveying the operational status of each printer includes pinging the printer's network address.