8 - Queue Management

Abstract

This chapter presents methods for configuring and naming print and batch queues and focuses on the centralized queue manager. It provides guidelines for configuring queues and the queue manager to ensure proper fail-over. The OpenVMS queue-management subsystem allows printers and computer resources to be shared using two types of queues—print queues and batch queues. The queue manager handles batch- and print-queue-management functions, such as creating, starting, and stopping queues and manipulating jobs. The queue manager is designed using a centralized model consisting of a single, clusterwide QUEUE_MANAGER process that performs all queue-management functions. The single QUEUE_MANAGER process accesses the queue database, minimizing contention and locking overhead, and allowing better performance within environments with heavy queue activity. The queue database stores queue and form definitions, job information, and fail-over information. OpenVMS supports multiple queue managers, which results in additional queue and journal files for example, if one adds a queue manager named PRINT_MGR, two additional files are created to contain queue and job information for that queue manager.