Detect Printer failure & high CPU usage

[Elly K]

Hello, I got CUPS 1.4.4 running on a virtual (SLES 10.3) Linux server on an IBM Mainframe. I use this server to print PDF's from my java application.  And I have a few questions

1) From the CUPS JOBS web page, I can see information on some printers about "Broken Pipe" and then there are messages about "foomatic failed" etc.,  What I tried to do in my Java application was to use the Runtime..exec() methods to read this JOBS web page and generate emails if I find strings matching "Broken pipe" or "failed" - Turned out to be a bad idea.  Most of the time, the web page is read in time, but sometimes it takes a long time and it creates a serious backlog.  Is there a more reliable way to detect printer problem situations from my java application?

2) When I print my PDF's I see a process called gs executing and sometimes there are multiple instances of gs running based on print requests.  My question is the CUPS server always seems to be using a lot of CPU when it's being used.  When not in use, the CPU use is almost nothing.  But when it is being hit even for a couple of pages, the usage briefly spikes to 99% before retreating.  And when there's heavy load, the CPU is pegged at 99% for a while.  Is this normal?

3) I would like to have another CUPS server to act as a backup to the main server.  In case, the main server is down or under heavy stress, I would like this backup server to take some of the load.  I'm sure there's plenty of software out there to do this sort of thing, but any ideas on how to do this the best way?

Any feedback would be sincerely appreciated.  Thank you.