In the global economy, it is increasingly common for businesses to require business printing in multiple geographic locations. When a company begins to research the advanced print spooling solutions available in the market, it will soon see that there were two different (if not polar) schools of thought regarding the implementation strategy of advanced spooling software.
The two strategies are to use a single centralized print server or to install spool software on the various application servers distributed throughout the enterprise. Both approaches have advantages and disadvantages.
The centralized print server model
In the centralized print server model, the company would simply install the print management software on a single centrally located server accessible throughout the company.
An advantage of a centralized print server is that it allows a single point of control and monitoring of all print jobs and queues in the company. This model may be easier as it is a single standard solution, requiring less administrator training and fewer printer definitions to maintain. Since this is a single standard solution rather than a solution that must be installed on multiple servers, it has the potential to save the business money through lower software license fees.
However, while this model offers a single point of control, a major drawback is that it offers a single point of failure. Not only does this mean business-wide downtime in the event the print server crashes or goes offline, but there are also significant concerns around disaster recovery situations. In the event of a disaster at the centralized printing location, the company’s printing operations would be offline indefinitely until the location could recover or until a different server location could be selected to reinstall and redeploy the solution. of impression.
This appears to be a significant enough limitation in its own right, but the centralized print server model also implies a loss of autonomy at the local print site level, where administrators do not have the ability to manage local queues and jobs. of impression. In addition, the implementation of the central spool solution requires multiple hops on the network, consuming precious bandwidth and increasing the related latency of print times.
Distributed print server model
The distributed print server model, on the other hand, is installed in multiple locations throughout the enterprise, from the scale of multiple regional print servers to installation at each client workstation throughout the enterprise.
The benefits of this print server model are that print jobs and queues can be controlled locally, with less reliance on central IT and print administrators for support. Since print requests are made locally, the amount of print request traffic and bandwidth used at the central print server are exponentially reduced, resulting in better printer performance and response time. Lastly, the distributed print server model offers an inherent degree of redundancy, as downtime at one location does not imply termination of printing processes across the enterprise.
However, the benefits of the distributed print server model are proven by the increased costs to the business. Multiple installations will mean multiple software license fees, multiplying the cost of the initial installation along with the increased cost of maintaining the software on servers through license renewal fees. Increasing the number of separate facilities will also increase the cost of training and keep IT staff proficient in the software.
In the distributed print server model, you also lose the centralized control that makes the centralized model so attractive. You also have more printer definitions to keep with the distributed model.
Decisions decisions
The advantages of these solutions appear to be largely mutually exclusive. However, there are significant benefits that a business would enjoy if it could implement a combined print management solution that provides the benefits of central print servers (maintaining fewer printer definitions, the ability to print from anywhere in the business to any business printer, along with the lower license fees one would expect with central print management) along with the benefits of distributed print server software (lower traffic and bandwidth requirements on a centralized server, higher performance latency and local print job and print queue control).
To implement a combined solution, a company can try to integrate two independent print management solutions: a centralized print management solution and a distributed solution. However, this could be not only expensive, but also difficult to perform effectively in the desired functions.
However, there are print management software packages that offer hybrid features. This solution enables the customer to implement a truly distributed printing environment while maintaining the benefits of a centralized facility. They have to maintain far fewer printer definitions, a business view of jobs / queues, a single standard solution, less administrator training, and low license fees.
Among these multifunctional models is the OM Plus V2 software from Plus Technologies. In such a hybrid exit solution, the software is installed on a server at each site. Only local queues (requiring minimal administration and maintenance) are defined at each site. The software gives each server the ability to automatically “advertise” its queues to all other servers on the network with the same software installed. In this way, all queues are available to all systems even if they are defined only once. The user interface for each facility allows users (with adequate security) to view all jobs and printers on the network from a single status screen. The system administration privileges are configured to limit the functions performed locally vs. centrally, giving administrators centralized control typically found only in a central print server administration program.
When a print job is queued, the printer definition is searched on the local server. If the printer is not found locally, the software-enabled server searches the other software-enabled servers for the printer and delivers the print job accordingly. This functionality makes all printers available to all systems. All local jobs are printed locally, ensuring efficient network usage with low latency and high performance.
With this particular software, license fees are minimized as the license price is based on the number of queues defined on each server. Therefore, only small licenses are required locally. This means that the number of queues and the associated price were kept low. A print management tool like this provides a true distributed print management solution that eliminates redundant printer definitions across the enterprise, while allowing printing to local and remote server printers.