The Service Registry allows public access printers to advertise themselves so that administrators and users can find them. This service maintains information about device type, device name, device address, and device-specific information such as the printer manufacturer and model number.
Before Novell® Distributed Print ServicesTM (NDPSTM ), each printer had to periodically advertise its availability through the Service Advertising Protocol (SAP), which was effective but created a lot of traffic on the wire.
The Service Registry Service helps minimize the network traffic problem created by many printers advertising through the SAP. (For information on turning off the SAP, see the documentation for your printer.) When you attach a public access printer to the network, it registers with the SRS. When an application or user wants to use a printer, it can contact an SRS and retrieve a list of all registered printers on the network.
NOTE: For IPXTM , the SRS uses SAP type 8202; for IP environments, it uses Multicast.
Through the SRS, plug-and-print public access printers, as well as those created manually, are immediately made available to users.
If there are multiple Service Registries running on the network, they synchronize automatically. This synchronization allows users to choose public access printers anywhere on the network.
In addition to printer information, the SRS also maintains lists of other services available, such as Event Notification Services and Resource Management Services. For more information, see Understanding the Event Notification Service and Understanding the Resource Management Service. Also see Enabling and Disabling Brokered Services.
For information about other major NDPS components, see the following: