Download Printer Networking Considerations For Large Organizations

Printer Networking Considerations
For Large Organizations
A Summary for the IT Manager
How to network the printers in a large organization in an effective way is one of the bigger
challenges for many IT managers. Different ways of networking printers can affect the IT
infrastructure as a whole in terms of capacity, flexibility, reliability and operational
effectiveness.
In this document, we will go through the fundamentals of networking printers and examine
the different factors that affect print networking TCO, and how printer networking may
affect the company’s IT infrastructure as a whole. We will also go through some special
conditions in which printer networking may be extra complicated.
The knowledge in this document is drawn from within Dipritec and the numerous
encounters we have had with large companies with printer networking problems.
Written by Yusuf Hasanogullari
Dipritec, 2010
Printing Networks 101
Before we dive into the different ways of networking printers, let’s cover some of the basics
of how printing works. This document will be focused on printing in a Windows
environment, but the general principles will be applicable to other environments as well.
From application file to printer
When a user presses the print button in an application, the printer file must go through a
series of steps before it is printed. The two main things that need to happen are:
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The information must be rendered into the specific format that the destination
printer can read.
The information must travel to the printer.
The rendering described in the first point is done by the printer driver. The result of
rendering is a file written in raw printer format. Depending on how well the printer driver is
written, the raw printer file often grows several times the original file’s size. After this, the
file can be sent to the printer or (or to the print server).
Driver management
Before a printer driver renders a print file, the user applies different settings to the print job
(such as simplex/duplex, B&W/colour, stapling, which tray will be used, etc.). Therefore, the
drivers must be stored in a location where the user can interact with them before sending
the file to the printer.
Furthermore, since each printer is different, each printer usually has its own version of
printer drivers and for different operating systems. Because of this, there are often a
multitude of printer drivers in the network that have to be managed. Managing all of these
drivers, making sure that they are installed in the right places, and updating the drivers is
often a complicated issue for a large company. The IT department has to consider the
company’s printing strategy as a whole and decide upon a printer driver management
strategy based on that. Depending on how the drivers are managed, the IT infrastructure
and IT operations can be affected in both subtle and significant ways. For example, driver
management can be a major time waste for the IT department, can contribute to a diverse
and non-standardized IT infrastructure in different offices, and create problems like printers
not being found by users, garbled printouts, or users not being able to use all the functions
of the printers in the organization.
The specifics of printer driver management, and printer driver management best practices
are discussed on a deeper level in our document “Printer Driver Management for Large
Organizations” (it can be downloaded for free at www.dipritec.co.uk/printer-drivermanagement).
Two main networking approaches
When thinking about how the print files will travel from the client computer to the printer,
there are two general approaches. Either the print files can be sent directly from the client
to the printer, or they can be sent via a central point on the network, a print server:
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Direct Printing: The clients renders the file locally with locally installed printer drivers,
and then sends the job directly to the printer (or it’s attached print spooler).
Central Server Printing: The clients send the print jobs to a central print server, which
also hosts the necessary printer drivers. The print server renders the job, and spools
it before sending it to the printer.
In general, direct printing is less sensitive to interruption and interferes less with the
organization’s IT infrastructure. But it also gives the organization almost no control and less
possibility to administer the printing. This ability to centrally control and administer the
printing can be a very important part of a company’s printing strategy. Let’s look closer at
what that really means.
Administration and control of printing
The more control the company has over what’s being printed and how printing is done, the
more it can do to reduce printing costs and troubleshoot problems. Below is a list of tasks
that administration and control of printing can mean:
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The ability to monitor printer devices to see how SLA’s are being followed up and to
pro-actively discover and solve problems.
The ability to move jobs from one printer queue to another when troubleshooting.
The ability to set automatic printing rules or user quotas.
The ability to authenticate users at the printer before printing their job, for security,
convenience, optimization and cost saving reasons.
The ability to gather statistics and data over the printing, and use this data to create
reports that can be used to optimize the printer park, set printing rules, or bill
projects for their printing costs.
The ability to prioritize certain print jobs over others so that people printing
important documents don’t have to wait for their files for too long.
The ability to centrally manage printer drivers to reduce administration load.
The ability to gather real-time data such as printer status, toner and paper levels.
Being able to do all of these tasks (and more that we haven’t mentioned here) can give the
company the ability to cut printing waste and printing costs, optimize the number of printers
they have, and improve the functionality of the printing for the end users. By implementing
the ability to do tasks like these, most companies (according to our experiences) can cut
their total printing costs by at more than 20%, some much more. These cost savings come
from less print jobs not picked up, less wasteful or unnecessary printing due to better rule
systems, more effective re-routing of print jobs to cost-effective printers, and better
optimization of the printer park resulting in fewer printers. And this isn’t even considering
the time savings that their IT department gets by making the operations smoother and more
effective, and by reducing support costs.
Direct printing can’t give the company this level of control, because each client is directly
connected to each printer, without a central system managing the process. The direct
printing approach can also be problematic in high load environments because there is no
central queueing mechanism that manages multiple clients printing to the same printer
simultaneously.
Central Server Printing can handle that and gives the company the control and
administration possibilities mentioned above. But it also interferes with the company’s IT
infrastructure, sometimes on a very deep level, and there will be several factors affecting the
Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) of the printing network. We will now look at those factors.
Factors affecting TCO of different print networking
approaches
The TCO of the printing network infrastructure depends on several factors. Below are the
ones that we have seen have the greatest effect.
Network load
When a printer driver transforms a file from the original application format to a raw printing
format, the file size usually grows several times the original size. With many users needing to
print at the same time across the organization, one of the main problems that need to be
overcome is the amount of network traffic that can be caused by printing. This is especially
important for organizations with many offices, since depending on how they network their
printers, they may experience large amounts of network traffic over their WAN links.
This problem can occur when a company doesn’t want to place print servers in each office.
Then they will have some offices whose printing will be handled by print servers in remote
locations. This will create a situation where print files will be sent from the local offices to
the central print servers. The rendering will be done on the print servers, and the large raw
print file will be sent back through the network to the local office, creating large amounts of
WAN traffic. This can cause slow printing (a user prints but has to wait for a long time before
the job appears at the printer), or a degraded connection for other applications that have to
share the same WAN links to the data centres.
Having print servers in each office might not be possible, because of budget constraints or
because of the extra administrative costs that having so many print servers would cause. For
example, installing print servers and print spoolers in the file servers in each office will
create the need to maintain printer drivers in all of those servers, creating extra workload
for the IT. Or gathering statistics and controlling the printing in the organization might
become more difficult and more expensive, because print management software might have
to be licensed and installed on each of those servers. Having many print servers contradicts
the goal of having central administration and control that the company may have been
aiming for in the first place.
Another solution might be to simply accept that it will be difficult to gain control over the
printing in so many offices, and instead implement direct IP printing in the local offices and
just control the printing with print servers in a few larger offices. In this scenario, the IT
department might not have to worry too much about how the infrastructure setup will be
affected in this scenario, but at the same time the company will lose out on the possibilities
to optimize the printing and cut costs in the smaller local offices.
Centralization and standardization
Many IT managers in large organizations want to consolidate their servers and centralize
their IT infrastructure in general, but the print management aspect of the IT infrastructure
prevents them from doing so. If they were to remove server hardware from different
locations and centralize their IT infrastructure, how would they then network their printers?
One option might be to invest in print servers in some of the regional offices, while
accepting that the smaller offices use the direct printing setup. Aside from losing control
over the printing in smaller sites, another problem with this approach would be that
different sites will have different infrastructures, and this means that it could be difficult for
the organization to create standardized processes. In the end, this can lead to problem such
as:
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Printing rules not standardized throughout the company, each office having its own
strategy when it comes to reducing paper waste, meaning that it will be difficult to
measure total printing costs.
IT decisions will have to be fractionized and local.
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Difficult to go through with company-wide initiatives, since special considerations
(such as printer driver compatibility when procuring new printers) will have to be
dealt with in each office.
In the end, different mixes of solutions are best for different organizations, but it is
important not to forget the print management aspect of the equation when thinking about
centralization.
Reliability and troubleshooting
A final consideration that we have just touched upon is the reliability aspect of printing.
After all, it is the IT department’s job to set up the printing infrastructure, and one of the
main components of success is that the printers work as they should. In many organizations,
printing is a mission-critical task that can stall operations if it doesn’t work. In construction
companies, for example, the building can’t proceed if plans are updated but can’t be printed.
Furthermore, problematic printing can be a considerable time waste for the IT department.
Users might have difficulties finding their printers, or printers won’t work, or the correct
drivers won’t be installed, or the whole network of printers in a particular area might
suddenly stop working because a print server crashed. In each of these cases, the users will
call the IT department for support. And each time a support call is made, both the IT
representative and the end user are wasting time that could have been productive.
So the two problems that the IT department faces in this area are:
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How do we make sure that the downtime of printing is minimized?
How do we solve problems effectively when downtime does occur or when a user
has a problem?
The way printers are networked is of course an important part of this, because depending on
how they are networked, the IT personnel might have different levels of control over what’s
going on and in what ways they can both troubleshoot and solve the problem. For example,
in using the direct printing setup, the IT personnel will have less insight into what is wrong,
and they might have to connect directly to the end users computer to even see where the
problem lies.
In a print server environment, however, and with the right software installed, the personnel
might be able to solve the problem immediately for that user by just moving the job to
another queue, and then fixing the underlying problem without having the user breathing
down their neck. They will also be able to install software that checks printer status
automatically and alerts the IT department when something is wrong, before the end users
start calling.
The downside, however, is that print servers may reduce the reliability of the printing. For
example, when there is something wrong with the print server (for example if a printer
driver causes it to crash), or if the server can’t be reached, all the connected printers will be
affected. Suddenly the helpdesk telephones will go hot and the whole printing infrastructure
will come to a standstill. The cost of maintenance will also increase, since all maintenance on
servers have to be done after-hours.
When choosing how to connect the printers, it is important to consider all of this and make a
decision that will both benefit the business in terms of control, the users in terms of
reliability, and the IT department in terms of troubleshooting and support.
Special considerations to make
Aside from the general factors that affect TCO for most organizations, there can also be a
number of special cases that need to be considered. We will go through some of the most
common ones below.
Terminal server printing considerations
Most large companies today have some applications running from terminal servers, which
users connect to remotely, either through ’thin’ or ‘fat’ clients. There are special
considerations to make here in regards to printing, because this functions differently than
printing from local applications.
The situation is that although both the user and the printer are in the same office, the
application may run from another, distant office or server hall. One challenge is to connect
that distant application to the printer that the user has nearby. Another challenge
is that since the print files will be sent over long distances, high network traffic and slow
printing can become problematic.
There are two fundamental ways to print through terminal services. The first is that the
printer queue is installed on the terminal server itself, and the terminal server sends the
print job to the printer of choice without involving the user client. In this case, the printer
drivers have to be installed on the terminal server, and the users connecting to that server
might see different printers than the ones they have installed on their local clients. When
printing, the terminal server will render the print job, and then send the job either to a
printer or to a print server.
The other way is that no printers are installed on the terminal server, but instead mapped to
it from the users’ clients when they connect to a remote application. In this case, the user
will see the same printers when printing through a remote application, as they have on their
local client. When the user prints, the terminal server application will send the print file to
the user client, and the user client will in turn treat it like an ordinary print file. Important to
note in this scenario is that all the printer drivers that are installed in the local client must
also be installed in the remote terminal server, because that is how the mapping is done.
And the same printer drivers must be installed in all the terminal servers. One of the
common problems for the IT department is to have all of those printer drivers installed in all
the terminal servers.
Most notably, printing through terminal servers will affect network traffic, because print files
have to be sent over the network to the printer. This can degrade the connection to the
terminal server and cause slow printing. Additionally, there will be one more point where
printers and drivers will have to be administered. For more information about terminal
server printing, see our blog post “How to set up remote printing through terminal services”
by searching for it on http://printmanagement.dipritec.co.uk.
Local printers
A company usually has a host of local printers connected directly to the computers of end
users in addition to the network printers. These are not a big problem when printing through
local applications, because the end user or the local facilities manager can simply plug them
in and they will work, and the drivers can be held at the local machine. But the problem kicks
in when users need to be able to print from terminal service applications. The terminal
service applications have no way of printing directly to the local printers, and have to use the
second method as discussed in the above chapter. This means that the printer drivers for the
locally attached printers must also be installed on the terminal servers, which can be difficult
if the IT department doesn’t impose strict controls over what printers are attached.
Furthermore, it is very difficult for the organization to get an idea of printing costs of local
machines, since these print jobs don’t pass through a print server. The paper and toner refills
have to be done manually, and there will be no rules to set and no way to control printing
costs. This is important because local printers are often less efficient than large network
printers in terms of printing costs.
Home based users printing from terminal server applications
Mix in home based users into the equation, and it becomes even more complicated. Homebased users will connect their home printers when printing through terminal services. This
means that every time a home based user decides to purchase a new printer, a call to the IT
department will be made. And each time that happens, the IT department has to install
those printer drivers on all of the terminal servers. With many home based users, this can be
a close to impossible task, and therefore it can be very difficult for the IT department to let
their home based users print from terminal server applications. Often, home based users are
forced to print on the printers at work, and get their print jobs the next time they are back at
work.
Mobile users
Mobile users are a special consideration because they have to be able to easily connect to
printers no matter which office they are in. Some of the problems in this scenario are:
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How will they be able to find the printers when they are in a new office?
If they travel a lot, many different printers from different offices will be available in
their computers in the end. How will all of these be managed and not confuse the
user?
How will printer drivers be managed - does the user have to have drivers from all
installed printers in their computer?
How will troubleshooting be handled? Will the IT department be able to see all the
different details of what drivers the user has installed, which printers they should be
able to see, and why the user can’t print?
It is important for these questions to be addressed if there are many mobile users, because
otherwise the IT support will probably spend a considerable chunk of its time helping mobile
users with their printing problems.
Different software solutions and our software Cirrato
In this last chapter, we will briefly describe different types of software solutions on the
market that can help solve the issues discussed above. We will also describe how our
software solution works and which types of companies it is mainly beneficial for.
Printer driver and terminal server software:
These software solutions focus on either providing universal printer drivers or driverless
printing, which can help the organization greatly in dealing with the discussed problems
because many of them are intimately tied with the driver management problem. Some
software in this category also helps compress print jobs that are printed from terminal
server applications, so that the problems discussed in the terminal server chapter above are
resolved effectively.
Print server software:
This group of software are software solutions that are installed on the print servers, and help
the company manage the flow of information that goes through the print servers. While
they can provide great functions such as printer accounting, printer authentication, and
printer quota systems, they do not resolve the underlying issues of network traffic and
centralization, but instead add extra functions to an existing infrastructure. This is beneficial
for companies who do not have problems with the underlying infrastructure, but just want
to get extra functions to improve their printing processes.
Our software Cirrato:
Cirrato is neither a pure direct printing solution, nor a pure server-based solution. It takes
the benefits of high reliability and low IT infrastructure impact of a direct printing setup, and
combines that with the ability to centrally control and administer the printing of a print
server setup. The benefits are best realized for large organizations
with many offices, who would otherwise suffer from a low level of
control, or high print management costs.