Modern Multi-tenant Print Management for Managed Service Providers (MSPs)

Managing printers across multiple customers and diverse IT infrastructures can be one of the most challenging problems modern MSPs face.  Something seemingly as simple as printing can cause countless hours of headaches with endless helpdesk calls and tickets resulting in frustrated customers and wasted time.  Traditional print management solutions have changed little in the last 20 years and provide little solace in the face of modern IT environments.  More organizations than ever are looking to make the move to the cloud and supporting printing is usually the last thing on their mind.  Recent and continuing print spooler vulnerabilities bring to light major security concerns and highlight the weaknesses of traditional print solutions.  PrinterLogic addresses these concerns and more, simultaneously solving problems, providing an opportunity to add to an MSPs existing solutions stack, and even increasing recurring revenue sources.

Supporting movement to the cloud

As customers look to reduce costs and increase reliability by moving to the cloud, few think to ask how it will affect printing.  Oftentimes print servers are the last vestitures of outdated on-prem infrastructure that IT professionals struggle to eliminate.  The obvious alternatives are grim and often result in increased work for technicians who are forced to remote into each device to manually install and configure print queues and drivers or send print jobs across the network to the cloud for processing.  These result in more time spent on print for techs and users than what is reasonable for something that could be simple.

PrinterLogic easily addresses these issues by providing an easy-to-use cloud-managed direct IP Print infrastructure.  The multi-tenant MSP portal allows for central management of all customer instances where printers are easily configured, deployed, and managed from a single pane of glass.  Integrations with other cloud services like Azure, Okta, Google, and many more make supporting a full cloud environment simple and easy.  The direct IP nature of the software ensures a reliable print experience for the end user, less headache for technicians, and a more secure print environment due to decentralized print spooling and other advanced features.

Providing better security and advanced functionality

             Traditional print infrastructure has a lot of shortcomings when it comes to security.  Print servers present a single point of failure and attack vector.  Combined with the recent PrintNightmare issues and botched fixes they have become too risky and difficult to manage for them to be worth the cost and effort.  A decentralized direct IP environment solves many of these issues but creates other management problems.  It requires techs frequently remoting into devices to add or adjust printers and drivers which takes too much time and introduces other vulnerabilities as they have to manage multiple remote sessions on a regular basis.

             PrinterLogic is the best of both worlds, combining the benefits of central management like you would get from print servers with the advantages of decentralized spooling and direct IP printing.   Allowing MSPs to not only better secure customer environments but also save time and reduce help desk overhead.  PrinterLogic also offers more advanced functionality to better support compliance and further secure infrastructure with modern techniques like Zero Trust Architecture.  These include features like Off-Network Printing and Secure Release Printing options.  Off-network is the ability to securely send jobs through the cloud so users don’t need a direct IP connection to the printers.  Secure release requires users to be authenticated before a job is released via a badge scan, pin code, or mobile app available on IOs and Android.  All form a program that is designed to not just solve these issues but also provide an additional revenue stream in an MSPs service stack.

A money-making and saving solution

             Licensing for MSPs is based on the number of printers being supported and is designed for easy resell.  Margins are typically 50-100%, depending on the volume discounts that can be taken advantage of.  The additional features are also broken out into optional bundles, so customers only pay for what they need.  Relative to traditional print management, most customers will see a return on investment after the first year, and MSPs will see not only a decrease in time spent managing print but an additional source of monthly recurring revenue.

 

             PrinterLogic is a modern Print Management solution for MSPs.  The multi-tenant management and partner program makes centralizing and standardizing simple and easy.  As more customers move to the cloud, it provides an easy answer to the problems with printing as on-prem infrastructure is deprecated.  It is a more secure way to print and offers feature-rich options to ensure that customer needs are met for compliance and other industry standards.  On top of solving these issues and more, it is also a solution that MSPs can expect to make money with.  If you are interested in learning more, you can request a demo or email msp@printerlogic.com for more information.