By 2025, 80% of organizations are expected to have migrated their on-prem data centers to colocation and the cloud. Enterprise printing has proved harder to shift, though, because many cloud printing solutions fail to address a key piece of the puzzle: print management. They fall short in crucial areas like security and ease of use.
A trusted identity platform like Azure Active Directory pairs the strengths of “classic” Active Directory with the flexibility of the cloud. That’s enabled a few organizations to take their first tentative steps toward cloud printing.
But there’s room for improvement. Deploying Azure printers suffers from the same complexity that made traditional print servers so frustrating. Routine print management, such as updating drivers or setting automatic printer defaults, is as cumbersome as it’s always been. Supporting mobile users in a dynamic environment is like trying to hit a moving target.
In other words, using Azure for print management might be considered a cloud printing solution, but it keeps some unwanted legacy baggage.
Enterprise printing, welcome to the cloud
PrinterLogic SaaS is an enterprise-grade, cloud-native serverless printing solution that works seamlessly with Azure AD. That combination gives your organization the best of print management coupled with the best of user management.
By leveraging both AD and LDAP, PrinterLogic SaaS can securely authenticate and authorize your users for conventional enterprise printing as well as advanced functionality like secure release printing and mobile/BYOD printing.
And because PrinterLogic SaaS is designed for tight integration with several leading cloud-based identity providers (IdPs), it delivers the following:
- A single sign-on (SSO) experience for end users across multiple applications
- Simplified user creation and access management
- Automated printer deployment to end users wherever they log in based on IdP credentials
- Centrally managed direct IP printing from a single web-based admin console
To accomplish this, PrinterLogic SaaS makes use of SAML 2.0, which is short for Security Assertion Markup Language. SAML 2.0 is an XML-based standard used for exchanging authentication and authorization data between an IdP and a service provider.
Along with SSO, PrinterLogic SaaS also supports multi-factor authentication (MFA) via SAML 2.0. This blog post has more details on how our serverless cloud printing solution communicates with IdPs.
Once you’ve rolled out PrinterLogic SaaS in your Azure AD environment, you can then deploy and manage printer objects from a single pane of glass—even for remote workers. Admins get to enjoy effortless print management and added security. Users enjoy smooth authentication procedures and reliable direct IP printing.
How to migrate print servers into PrinterLogic SaaS
If you’re already using Azure AD, migrating to PrinterLogic SaaS couldn’t be easier. Close to 70% of PrinterLogic customers fully migrate in under a week.
It’s pretty simple:
- The automated migration tool lets you import your existing printers, profiles, settings and even drivers from your print servers directly into PrinterLogic SaaS. Any unmanaged direct IP printers can then be mass imported via the CSV uploader. When that’s finished, you can make any remaining granular changes in PrinterLogic’s intuitive admin console.
- Meanwhile, the PrinterLogic workstation client will silently convert the Windows shared printers throughout your print environment into direct IP printers. But unlike conventional direct IP printers, PrinterLogic printers can all be managed easily from the admin console. Any changes you make to printer settings or user authorizations are updated on the workstation in real time.
And that’s a wrap. You’re now experiencing robust enterprise printing and superior print management via the cloud, thanks to PrinterLogic SaaS and Azure AD.
This whitepaper looks at how PrinterLogic SaaS simplifies printing and print management in Windows Virtual Desktop. It offers a deeper dive into benefits, setup and use cases, including with Azure AD.