Printing For Businesses with Multiple Locations Best Practice. ThinPrint White Paper

Transcription

1 Printing For Businesses with Multiple Locations Best Practice ThinPrint White Paper

2 Contents 1. Outline Remove Windows Print Servers and Create Company-Wide Scalability ThinPrint Engine in Corporate Headquarters: ThinPrint Hub in Other Business Locations Fast Printing & Reduced Burden for WAN (and Wi-Fi) Remote Applications and Virtual Desktops...8 Summary...9 Follow ThinPrint: twitter youtube linkedin

3 1. Outline In many businesses with multiple locations, the print server is one of the last local servers. It ensures highquality printing, prioritizes print jobs when required, and provides printer drivers. However, local print servers cause huge costs and tie up local resources. Offering in-house printing as a centralized service or printing without using any server at all are therefore increasingly becoming the focus of IT organizations. However, serverless printing leads to poor support for employees who would like to print flexibly at different locations, or work with thin clients, and worst of all, causes especially low scalability and poor fail-safe security of the print system. But a central print system has the disadvantage that print data which can be of considerable size has to be sent between the data center and the individual locations. And the print data has to make its way to the network printers in these locations that are hidden behind masked networks. In addition, the frequently sensitive data must be protected during transmission. Only ThinPrint makes it possible to combine the benefits of a completely centralized print system such as an extreme reduction in administrative effort, along with scalability, and fail-safe security with low network load and fast, secure printing. This white paper will show you one possibility of how this can work with ThinPrint. The principle is quite simple: The ThinPrint Hub is used in the business s locations. The ThinPrint Hub connects the printers in these locations securely with Thin- Print Engine. The ThinPrint Engine takes on the entire printer and printer driver management. Numerous ThinPrint features ensure the data to be transmitted is minimized and encrypted, and also provide fast printouts. 3

4 2. Remove Windows Print Servers and Create Company-Wide Scalability There are several reasons for organizations to use Windows print servers in their additional locations: Central management of printers in each location Ensuring high availability/performance of the print system Disadvantages: Extremely expensive and labor-intensive solution, since hardware, power, and administration have to be available in all locations Poor support for employees who have to print flexibly at different locations, and for centralized applications or desktops Solution: Centralizing the print servers with ThinPrint Engine ThinPrint Hub replaces Windows print servers in the business s locations ThinPrint Secure Tunnel ensures simple and secure connection of the printers Compression, bandwidth control, streaming, and caching ensure fast printing 2.1 ThinPrint Engine in Corporate Headquarters: The best design for central print management in a high availability, stable print environment is ThinPrint Engine. ThinPrint Engine is installed on one or multiple central servers. Then the burden of printing and all the printer drivers as well are outsourced there. Business location A Business location B Data center Business location C Business location D Figure 1: ThinPrint Engine as central print server in the data center 4

5 Now only the unique virtual ThinPrint driver is used on the workstations and desktops, including Macs. The native printer drivers are only used on the central Thin- Print Engine and managed in a central printer pool. Thanks to ThinPrint, business locations can thus be kept completely free of printer drivers. Nevertheless, it is not necessary to abandon advanced finishing features in the process (such as punching, stapling, and N-UP). To use the ThinPrint virtual driver, all that is needed is simple printer sharing. Business location A Business location B Data center Business location C Business location D Figure 2: The ThinPrint Output Gateway replaces all the printer drivers. The original printer drivers are only available on the central print server. Windows print servers in the other business locations also become superfluous. 1 The central servers ensure reliable spooling with the possibility of prioritizing print jobs and bundling resources in one place and arranging them for high availability, for example by clustering multiple core Windows print servers. If a printing error should nevertheless occur, organizations benefit from the central, simple troubleshooting and in an extreme case, from fast disaster recovery. An intelligent, and to a large extent highly automated allocation of printers to employees ensures that the correct printer is available to everyone, everywhere. With ThinPrint AutoConnect, allocation is performed automatically by using a large number of criteria such as IP area, user group, or printer name. ThinPrint Management Center and ThinPrint Management Services ensure simple central management of print objects and printer settings. Many work steps are largely automated, either via an intuitive GUI (management center) or on request completely by Microsoft PowerShell (management services). 1 You can find more information at: 5

6 2.2 ThinPrint Hub in Other Business Locations The Windows print servers in the business s locations are quite simply replaced by the ThinPrint Hub. The ThinPriny client is pre-installed on the ThinPrint Hub. After connection by a network cable, the IT department can configure the ThinPrint Hub centrally. In the other locations, the ThinPrint Hub is only connected to the network and power cables. Thus local Windows print servers become a thing of the past. Figure 3: The ThinPrint Hub replaces the print servers. The configuration of the ThinPrint Hub can be secured centrally and reconstructed at any time, e.g., as the basis for similarly configured ThinPrint Hubs. Spotlight: ThinPrint Secure Tunnel To set up the connection of the printers with the central print system, the ThinPrint Connection Service, a very special ThinPrint feature, comes into action. Unlike in the normal communications direction, the ThinPrint Connection Service builds a secure print tunnel from the ThinPrint Client on the ThinPrint Hub to the central print system via the ThinPrint Secure Tunnel. This tunnel is used to transmit the print jobs and then they are distributed from the ThinPrint Hub to the local network printers. In addition, up to 4 USB printers can be connected and thus be converted into network printers. It must be emphasized at this point that the print servers do not have to know the IP address of the printers. In most locations, companies use masked networks and you need a VPN tunnel to reach the printers. This is not necessary with ThinPrint. Thanks to ThinPrint Secure Tunnel, no direct connection from the printers to the print server has to exist. The print data is also transmitted securely in SSL-encrypted form. Since print jobs may also contain highly sensitive data and should also be protected. This scenario may also be used outside the Windows environment. On the central ThinPrint server, all the printers required are installed in the V-layer mode. These printers may also be used to print from any Unix, SAP, or AS/400 or iseries system. Data center Central print server ThinPrint Engine Windows server ThinPrint Connection Service Business location ThinPrint Hub with ThinPrint Connection Service Figure 4: The ThinPrint Connection Service on the ThinPrint Hub constructs a print tunnel to the ThinPrint Connection Service in the data center. 6

7 Digression: Printing in the DMZ/with Multiple Firewalls The ThinPrint Connection Service is also the ideal component to ensure printing with the highest security standards in the DMZ and with multiple firewalls. In the DMZ, no data is stored or spooled locally and the TCP lines are only opened in one direction in the direction of the ThinPrint Connection Service. Data center Virtual/Remote Desktop Server: ThinPrint Engine Central print server ThinPrint Engine DMZ Windows Server: ThinPrint Connection Service Business location ThinPrint Client Application Servers /VDI Figure 5: Secure printing in the DMZ. 2.3 Fast Printing & Reduced Burden for WAN (and Wi-Fi) 2 If the print system is completely centralized as shown, this produces another challenge: print jobs become very large. This imposes a burden on the lines. Slow printing frustrates users and leads, among other things, to repeated triggering of the print jobs and to superfluous support requests. This leads to unnecessarily high costs. Solution: ThinPrint Engine offers the unique ThinPrint Advanced Adaptive Compression. Print jobs are analyzed and every component (e.g., different image formats) is compressed with the best algorithms. The print data volume to be transmitted is reduced by up to 98%, both from the workstation that triggered the print job to the print server, and from the print server to the printer. Central print server ThinPrint Engine Figure 6: Print data compressed by up to 98%. Other methods such as streaming and ThinPrint SpeedCache 3 ensure a fast start of the print jobs and high performance printing overall. Connection-based bandwidth control for the print data ensures that printing always remains in the background. Regardless of the number of users printing simultaneously, the network performance is not affected. 2 You can find more information at: WhitePaper/printing-in-wi-fi-networks 3 You can find more information at: WhitePaper/achieve-complete-server-consolidation 7

8 3. Remote Applications and Virtual Desktops Companies are increasingly relying on applications and desktops provided from a data center with the help of virtualization technologies from Microsoft (Remote App/VDI), Citrix (XenApp/XenDesktop), and Vmware (Horizon with View). In this case the architecture discussed is all the more recommended, because print jobs have to go from the central applications and desktops to the printers in the other business locations anyway. Here all the features of ThinPrint Performance come into their own. ThinPrint is perfect for all the virtualization solutions mentioned and also keeps all the virtual desktops completely free of printer drivers. In the process, ThinPrint not only improves the printing. Outsourcing print preparation to the ThinPrint Engine, for example, also enables far higher user density on the remote desktop session hosts or virtual desktop servers. For users who are connected via Citrix NetScaler Gateway, Remote Desktop Gateway or PCoIP Secure Gateway, the ThinPrint Connection Service is the ideal addition for network printing. The associated ThinPrint Secure Tunnel enables network printers to be addressed via TCP/IP, in masked networks as well. Thus the session (RDP/HDX/PCoIP) as a whole can be kept free of print data. Another benefit: even if the session is terminated prematurely, the printout still comes out of the printer. The print process is performed via the separate TCP/IP connection. Thus the user can send off his print job, close the session, and still take the printout from the printer on the way to the meeting. 8

9 Summary ThinPrint offers benefits from both worlds: high scalability with fail-safe security of print servers and fast, secure printing anywhere. ThinPrint Engine provides a completely centralized, highly scalable printing system that makes local Windows print servers superfluous. Management of the printers and print drivers and preparation of the print jobs are performed at the same place. Various manual administration steps for printing are automated and many faults such as driver conflicts are completely eliminated. The ThinPrint Hub is simply connected to the network and the power supply in the business location and away you go. Along with the Thin Print Secure Tunnel, it ensures a simple connection of the printers in the business s locations, and the encrypted transmission of sensitive print data. A large number of ThinPrint Performance features, and especially ThinPrint Advanced Adaptive Compression, ensure fast, secure printing everywhere, with every device or printer, and with only a small burden on Wi-Fi and WAN. Additional white papers or questions: You can download this and many other white papers on relevant IT subjects here: What customers think of ThinPrint? Independent, third-party research on how customers view ThinPrint products can be found at: Any questions? The ThinPrint experts are happy to help. Contact us via one of our local offices listed on the next page or send an to info@thinprint.com. 9

10 Headquarters ThinPrint GmbH Alt-Moabit 91 a Berlin, Germany Tel.: +49 (0) Fax: +49 (0) Cortado Pty Ltd. Level 12, Plaza Building, Australia Square, 95 Pitt Street NSW 2000 Sydney, Australia Tel.: +61-(0) Australia info@thinprint.com USA (Colorado) Cortado, Inc Grandview Avenue, Suite 200 Denver, CO 80002, USA Tel.: info@cortado.com Cortado Japan 20th Floor, Marunouchi Trust Tower Main, Marunouchi Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo Tel.: +61-(0) Fax: +81-(0) Japan All names and trademarks are the names and trademarks of the respective manufacturers. Follow ThinPrint: twitter youtube linkedin