Slow printing on networked printers is probably one of end users’ biggest enterprise printing pet peeves. That makes it one of IT’s biggest pet peeves, too, because they’re the ones who have to deal with all the support tickets.
What causes slow network printing? The culprits can vary depending on your printing solution, but it often comes down to one thing: overtaxed print servers. They can put the brake on printing speeds, making it seem like an eternity between users clicking “Print” and finally being able to retrieve their documents.
Print servers are problematic by design. All print jobs get routed through them, which means that an unusually large number of print jobs, a high sustained printing workload or software/hardware errors can all have a negative impact on printing. As a result, enterprise printing infrastructures become a collection of bottlenecks and single points of failure.
It gets worse when you’re running consolidated print servers. What you might gain in reduced infrastructure or simplicity of management you lose through decreased liability. One user sending large files like uncompressed PDFs or vector files can bog down printing for everyone. Plus remote offices see even higher lag times because their print jobs have to cross the WAN.
A complex problem with a simple solution
The solution is simple: Eliminate print servers. But I can already see some folks shaking their heads. “Eliminate print servers? There’s no way you can do that in an enterprise environment!”
The thing is, you can eliminate print servers—every last one—from your print environment. Along with solving the ongoing problem of slow printing, you can do it in a way that brings greater ease and way more scalability than competing printing solutions.
PrinterLogic’s serverless printing infrastructure is how.
- No more single points of failure: Even though PrinterLogic gives admins centralized management of the entire print environment, its direct IP architecture is closer to a client-centric printing model. That equals more robust, resilient enterprise printing. Print jobs don’t have to be routed through a slow, unreliable server.
- Gets rid of WAN bottlenecks: PrinterLogic’s direct IP printing has another benefit. It keeps print jobs on the local network, so they don’t cross the WAN. That frees up bandwidth for other applications. It also prevents latency and network traffic volumes from affecting printing speed.
- More visibility, easier management: Rogue drivers can add to print servers’ long list of problems. Using PrinterLogic’s common repository, admins can easily monitor, update and roll back printer drivers to keep things running smoothly. The intuitive web-based admin console also makes it easier to tweak settings and troubleshoot.
The need for (printing) speed
Hrvatska pošta (Croatian Post) had about the toughest enterprise printing demands you could imagine. It had over 1,000 remote post offices, many of which were linked to the mainland via spotty WAN connections. It needed to fold these locations into its unique Citrix-based Private Cloud initiative and provide them all with superfast, rock-solid printing while eliminating print servers.
PrinterLogic made that possible. It outperformed other printing solutions by unifying a chaotic printer fleet and ensuring seamless VDI printing. Its common repository ironed out driver issues that were causing slow printing. Today, printing speeds and print management are non-issues. Read the Hrvatska pošta case study here.
If you and your end users feel the need for printing speed, give PrinterLogic a try and see how it can accelerate printing in your enterprise environment. Sign up now (it’s easy and quick, of course!) for your PrinterLogic demo and test it totally free of charge for 30 days.