Printer management in an Enterprise network can be a touchy subject. Especially when the network consists of multiple OS’s and platforms. Windows and its various versions, OS X and now Linux distributions are all making their way into the enterprise network. Though it is possible to connect your Windows, Mac and Linux clients to the printers being shared from your Windows print server, the question is, how do you go about managing all those printers and drivers across the array of operating systems seamlessly?

The answer to that question is PrinterLogic. With PrinterLogic you can manage your entire enterprise printing environment with a single server. The server host’s a web application (PrinterLogic) that can be accessed from any computer on the network with a web browser. The PrinterLogic web application, paired with it’s client—which resides on the endpoint device—will automatically convert your existing printers over to Direct IP and assume all future management from that point on. The next time you need to update a printer driver, rename a printer, or just gather extensive reporting and statistics about your printing, you can log into the PrinterLogic Administration console and with a few clicks your entire environment is updated automatically and you have informative reports and historical printing records. In addition to being able to manage your printers and drivers, you’ll no longer have a print server—which means you eliminate that single point of failure, while also reducing or eliminating WAN traffic caused by printing. That’s a win win. So how does this all work?

Step 1. Spin up a server running Windows Server 2008R2 or newer. This can be a VM or physical box.

Step 2. Run PrinterLogic Web Stack (formerly Printer Installer) setup on the server. This should only take around 10 mins to complete since it will be adding the IIS role and installing the web app.

Step 3. Import your existing printers into the software with an easy to use import utility that can read your print server. If your printers are already installed locally via Direct IP then you can use a spreadsheet file and our Data Manager utility to import your document and create the printers.

Step 4. Install the PrinterLogic Client on your workstations. This can be done with a provided MSI, PKG, and DEB file. Mass deployments can be done silently with SCCM or Group Policies.

Step 5. You are done.

Once the PrinterLogic Client is installed on your workstations, it will automatically convert the existing Windows Shared printers over to Direct IP. And for existing Direct IP printers, the Client will assume the management. At this point you can update your printers from the provided PrinterLogic Administrator Console, from any computer on your network, and that change will replicate back out to your environment and be applied to every workstation with that printer installed.

By now you are probably wondering how it works with your Linux workstations. Our developers have created a Client that can be installed on your Linux workstations (debian distros only at the time of writing) with a deb file. After running through steps 1 – 3 found above you can now install the PrinterLogic Client with your organization’s tools used to deploy .deb applications, or with sudo access you can manually install the PrinterLogic Client. The steps for the manual install are as follows:

Method #1:

Manually Installing the PrinterLogic Client from the PrinterLogic Self-Service Printer Installation Portal

To manually install the client visit the PrinterLogic Portal http://printers.yourdomain.com

1. Click on the Install Client link in the top right corner to download the PrinterLogic Client installation deb file.
2. Browse to the download folder and open the printerinstallerclient_amd64.deb file with Ubuntu Software Center by double clicking or right clicking and selecting “Open with Ubuntu Software Center.”
3. Click Install at the top right and enter your password to authorize the Client install.
4. Refresh browser and the Client install is complete.

Method #2:

Manually Install the PrinterLogic Client in Linux Ubuntu from a Terminal (you must have sudo access)

1. 1. Get the PrinterLogic Client install .deb file from the server:
      wget http://<yourserver>/client/setup/printerinstallerclient_amd64.deb
      Note:
      * Sudo access is required

 

1. 1. Install the Client and set the home url with the following command:
      sudo dpkg -i printerinstallerclient_amd64.deb || sudo apt-get -f install && sudo /opt/PrinterInstallerClient/bin/./set_home_url.sh <set http or https> <homeURLhere>Example: sudo dpkg -i printerinstallerclient_amd64.deb || sudo apt-get -f install && sudo /opt/PrinterInstallerClient/bin/./set_home_url.sh http printers.printerlogic.local

 

1. If you are on an HP ThinPro device you will install the Client with the following command:
   sudo dpkg -i printerinstallerclient_amd64.deb || sudo apt-get -f install && sudo /writable/opt/PrinterInstallerClient/bin/./set_home_url.sh <set http or https> <homeURLhere>

The PrinterLogic Client is now installed and you are managing the printers and drivers for your Linux workstations.

As Microsoft’s End of Life deadline has come and gone for Windows Server 2003/R2, you might be considering using the company’s Print Server Migration Tool (yes, they do offer one) to help with the upgrade transition.

There are a couple of paths you can take to deal with the obsolescence. Since Windows Server 2008 is still supported for a few more years, you can:

• Use the Print Server Migration Tool to go from Windows Server 2003 to 2008
• Use the Print Server Migration Tool to go from Windows Server 2003 to 2008, then to 2012
• Or use the Print Server Migration Tool to go from Windows Server 2003 straight to 2012

Regardless of which path you choose to follow, the Print Server Migration Tool will present you with a wizard that will allow you to export your print queues and drivers. Then you can import all these settings into the new server. One big caveat is that you might not have 64-bit drivers installed on Windows Server 2003, yet you will need to have them in place when transitioning to 2008 or 2012. You’ll have to add each of those 64-bit drivers manually prior to using the Print Server Migration Tool, otherwise the migration could fail. To be on the safe side, you’ll want to use the most current universal drivers—unless, of course, you need a manufacturer driver for specific capabilities.

Once you’ve completed the Print Server Migration Tool process successfully, your work isn’t over. Next you’ll need to allow the users to connect to the server and see if everything is running smoothly. Remember to rename the new print server or take the old one offline beforehand! It’s a common oversight that causes no end of headache.

The larger problem with using the Print Server Migration Tool at all is that you’re bound to run into object or queue errors, dependency issues and configuration complications. And in the end you’re still stuck with print servers.

So here’s some food for thought: Why not use this migration from Windows Server 2003 to 2008 or 2012 as a chance to eliminate print servers altogether? Instead of wrestling with the Print Server Migration Tool, you can use PrinterLogic’s web-based application to select all your existing queues, drivers, preferences and information. Then everything will be carried over seamlessly into PrinterLogic’s rock-solid, highly adaptable print environment. After pushing out a tiny client to your workstations, any Windows shared printers on your network will be automatically detected and converted into direct IP printers.

Nor does the ease of use stop there. PrinterLogic lets you automatically update drivers individually or en masse, manage printers and print queues from a single pane of glass, and even empowers your users with simple self-service printer installs. All that fretting over 64-bit drivers and dependencies? It’s now a thing of the past. Just like your old print server.

There’s an oft-repeated saying that the Chinese use the same word for crisis and opportunity. That idea certainly applies to migrating from Windows Server 2003. Rather than view it as a crisis of driver errors, lost queues and incompatible settings, isn’t it better to seize the opportunity to move to PrinterLogic?

Posted by Devin Anderson

Many of our enterprise customers praise PrinterLogic for its astounding ease of use—especially when it comes to their employees’ printing experience. Which is to say, those employees click “Print” and their document is instantly queued and printed at the correct printer. No cryptic errors, no jobs that mysteriously vanish into the ether. That’s exactly how they expect it to be. Which is exactly how it should be.

When it comes to security, though, that effortlessness can pose a risk. It’s like letting your web browser store all your login credentials. Sure, it makes things more convenient, but it opens up the possibility for exploitation too. That’s why two-step verification—whereby a website will immediately follow your login attempt with a time-limited security code that only you can access—has started to become common practice.

To address similar concerns over security, PrinterLogic uses secure pull printing. What is pull printing? Think of it as two-step verification for your enterprise print environment. There’s the initial step that comes when a user sends a job to a printer you’ve authorized for their use through Active Directory or an IP range. Then there’s the second step that issues the command for the printer to actually print the document.

The “pull” command can be issued in a variety of ways:

• Release Station: A PC or tablet (Android or iOS) is set up next to the printer. The device is set to kiosk mode and allows the end user to see and release their print jobs via the PrinterLogic web-based app.
• Mobile Device: Any device with a browser can select and release the stored print jobs via PrinterLogic.
• Control Panel or Console: The print job is released through a PrinterLogic app that is located on the Multi Function Printer control panel.

What’s different about the way PrinterLogic implements its pull printing solution is that no server is required. Traditional print solutions end up routing the job to be pulled through one or more print servers—which creates additional waypoints where the job can be intercepted, lost or held up.

PrinterLogic, by contrast, uses server-less pull printing, so the job goes directly from the device to the virtual pull printing queue. Once it’s in that queue, it can only be “pulled” by authorized users.

But here’s the ultra-convenient part: Those users can pull the job wherever they happen to be. That means you can print out a sensitive presentation from a workstation on the third floor and pull it for printing once you reach your meeting on the fifth floor. That way, it’s not left sitting in the paper tray for all to see.

PrinterLogic’s server-less, secure pull printing solution is a great way to keep your documents confidential while actually adding practical features. Because, as we all know, even the most rock-solid security features are ineffective if they’re not convenient enough for everyone to use.

Posted by Andrew Miller

Let’s do a little macro/micro exercise. We’ll start by zooming in on the average employee. He’s there at his desk, printing out an important spreadsheet or the annual report, along with a cute sign for the break-room or his buddy’s band poster—maybe even doing it in color. Toner and paper are a natural part of his workday routine. Sometimes they run out—but then they’re replenished as if by magic (by the diligent office manager). So he doesn’t think about how much he’s using.

Now let’s skip ahead to the next day, when he does the same thing again. And the next. And the next. All to the tune of $1,000 in consumables per year on average. When you start to zoom out, multiplying that by the number of employees in your entire organization, it quickly becomes apparent that the cost of print consumables in enterprise printing is anything but trivial. It’s actually a significant expense.

Auditing is a great way to get a grip on the runaway costs of consumables, but traditional print management solutions don’t provide any useful reporting tools that give you both the comprehensive and granular data you need to audit effectively. Native Windows print services don’t provide any auditing and reporting features at all. On top of that, you have the hefty upfront costs of print servers (see our previous post on reducing print server infrastructure) and the time your staff spends answering print-related service desk calls (see our previous post on reducing these costs, too).

Fortunately, PrinterLogic printer management software allows you to reduce or even avoid these costs while giving you powerful auditing and reporting tools to monitor usage of consumables at the same time. Even though every print job is sent directly to a physical printer, the client on each workstation sends relevant metadata to the admin. That data is then collected and presented in a way that enables you to view all print job statistics in a clearly understandable format that can also be exported for further analysis and shared.

With PrinterLogic, you’ll be able to easily keep an eye on things like the number of pages being printed in a particular department, your company’s top 100 printer users, and employees who frequently initiate large printing jobs. This link has a few more examples of all the parameters you can monitor at a glance.

Thanks to these detailed auditing and reporting features, our enterprise customers have been able to take steps to reduce their usage of print consumables considerably. A recent TechValidate survey of our enterprise customers showed that 21% of the respondents were able to reduce their print consumables by 70% or more. Nearly one-third of customers saw a reduction of at least 50%, and 47% of them saw at least a 30% reduction. When you apply that kind of decrease to our average employee above, you’re looking at $300 per year in print consumables instead of $1,000. Multiply that by all the employees in your organization, and suddenly your significant expenses turn into massive cost savings.

Such proven auditing tools might not be the primary reason why our customers make PrinterLogic their enterprise printing solution of choice, but you can be sure that more and more of them are finding these tools indispensable.

Posted by Jordan Lindsey

Managing printers in Citrix can be a big problem for many administrators because of the uncertainty on how to manage the printer objects and printer drivers in each location. Citrix users frequently deal with uncertainty on whether to put the printer objects and printer drivers on the Citrix server, in the Citrix OS, or on the end point and redirect. This inevitably leads to frustration at how the Citrix Universal driver doesn’t always work. There are many limitations on driver profile capabilities to support hole punching, duplex, color controls, secure printing, lack of reporting, and self service printer installation capability. Scripting and using GPOs is difficult to manage and causes delays during the login process for users. There’s also the question of transitioning from fat clients to zero clients and a need to support both scenarios. How can you solve all of these issues?

Luckily, PrinterLogic is here to help with Citrix printing. Let me explain how the solution works.

PrinterLogic converts your print server environment and/or direct IP environment into a centrally managed direct IP environment with a single on-premise web-based administration console. PrinterLogic runs as an agent on the end user’s workstations (where applicable), with Citrix OS published for the desktops and on the Citrix server publishing the applications.

PrinterLogic can deploy and setup printers in a few different ways. For your end users, they simply go to a web page, view a floor plan map with all their nearby printers, and click on the nearest printer to install it on their own, no matter what their permissions are. That’s right, a guest, generic account, kiosk, etc. can all install any printer they have access to, without ever having to contact IT.

PrinterLogic can also handle printer installation through automation. Any printer can be installed for end users by any of the following means; Active Directory User, Computer, Group, Container and OU, IP address Range, Hostname and MAC Address. All these deployments options are based upon the physical endpoint device whether it is a Fat, Thin or Zero client. So if you want a printer installed on a published desktop or published application, we detect all the endpoint information and create and present the printers based upon the physical device and location of the user.

We also hear from many customers who use GPOs, and most complain that it is a slow login process for the users. That’s not a problem for PrinterLogic. The client runs as a system service, so we do not use GPO or scripting, and log offs and reboots are not required. If a user disconnects his or her Citrix session and then reconnects somewhere else, the PrinterLogic client detects that change and automatically display the new printers in the desktop or application the user is viewing.

You might think this is all too good to be true, but that’s exactly why we offer you a free 30-day Proof of Concept where one of the PrinterLogic system engineers will install it and enable you to see for yourself how PrinterLogic works in your own environment. Do not continue to let Citrix printer management be a headache to manage. Contact us for a demo or a free 30-day trial.

Posted by Devin Anderson

When you’ve spent any amount of time in a particular line of work, you pick up the lingo. You start using words or phrases that are shorthand for a whole host of ideas. Eventually those words or phrases become so commonplace that you can’t recall a time when you didn’t know them—but to the layperson’s ear, they might as well be Greek.

Take a phrase like enterprise print management solutions. It’s one we use often on this blog and in our press materials, because that’s exactly what PrinterLogic is in a nutshell. But what exactly do we mean when we talk about PrinterLogic as an enterprise print management solution? And how does it differ from traditional print management solutions?

Traditional print management solutions are best exemplified by print servers. These are hardware devices designed with the sole purpose of connecting client computers to printers over a network, functioning as intermediaries between the “Print” button on your screen and the device that prints out the physical documents. They have more or less been the standard for years.

As with any standard, however, there comes a time when their utility should be questioned. For the same reasons we no longer listen to music on wax cylinders or make our daily commute on horseback, print servers are looking more and more anachronistic. They entail high upfront and replacement costs, require a great deal of maintenance, and can be finicky (to say the least) in daily use.

Back when print servers were the only method of dealing with networked printing environments, they made sense despite their inherent drawbacks. But the size and geographic distribution of modern workplaces have pushed print servers to their usable limits, and what’s more, print servers have been superseded by more flexible, more robust technology—what we call enterprise print management solutions. Namely, PrinterLogic. And we’ve made it something of a mission to show companies of all sizes how easy it is to eliminate print servers forever.

By eliminating print servers and deploying PrinterLogic, you actually retain all the functionality of a traditional print management solution while introducing all the benefits of an enterprise print management solution. For example, you can still print to any networked printer. Only now you can print from end-point devices to the printers themselves, which does away with heavy WAN traffic. That reduces congestion across the entire network and speeds up print times.

Centralization is another huge bonus. With PrinterLogic, you can manage every single printer in the company from a single terminal. That allows you to batch or selectively update drivers with a single click, easily set default printers, or auto-deploy printers without having to use group policy objects, scripts or print servers. Centralization also means consistency. The management interface and processes are the same throughout the entire organization.

That also holds true for end users, not just admins. PrinterLogic empowers your employees with consistent self-service options, so users with everyday computer skills can install printers with just a click. Mobile employees can also print natively from any tablet, smartphone or netbook with a browser—yet PrinterLogic actually enhances that convenience by allowing you to double down on security with granular authorization and pull printing.

Combined with seamless integration into Citrix environments and powerful auditing options, that all adds up to a drastic reduction in WAN traffic, support desk calls, time spent on troubleshooting, and consumables usage. Which translates to huge savings in both the short and long term.

Now that we’ve highlighted just a few advantages of PrinterLogic as an enterprise print management solution, is it any wonder why we consider print servers to be a museum piece?

Posted by Andrew Miller

We end up speaking to a lot of people at trade shows, and one comment we frequently hear runs something like this: “We would love to eliminate print servers in our organization, but we have too many remote offices. We’re too distributed to look for a simpler solution.”

Then we get to experience the fun of seeing the delight on their faces when we demonstrate PrinterLogic, and show them that the opposite is true. Any organization, no matter how distributed, has the ability to drastically reduce its remote server infrastructure by implementing PrinterLogic printer management software. And organizations that are highly distributed might even stand to benefit the most from migrating to PrinterLogic on account of increased sources of ROI.

To put it another way: Eliminating print servers with PrinterLogic is not only possible, it can be profitable.

Take CFCU Community Credit Union, for example. They’re one of the largest credit unions in New York State. After dealing with 2-3 print server failures per week that would effectively bring down their entire enterprise print environment, CFCU was determined to eliminate all four of their print servers (two Citrix and two local) across ten offices.

Once they adopted PrinterLogic as their print management solution, they were able to eliminate print servers altogether—plus all the productivity-sapping downtime those servers caused. And CFCU got some nice perks to boot, like a simplified end-user experience and the joy of never having to troubleshoot or upgrade a print server again.

CFCU Community Credit Union isn’t alone. A recent survey by TechValidate of PrinterLogic’s enterprise customers revealed that nearly a quarter of our customers, like CFCU, were able to eliminate between 90% and 100% of their print servers. Almost half of our customers were able to reduce remote print servers by over 70%. 61% were able to reduce their remote server infrastructure by more than 50%.

If you’re interested in learning more about how companies like CFCU Community Credit Union are eliminating the cost and headaches of print servers enterprise-wide, take a look at some of our other case studies of major companies who have completely eliminated their print servers in various distributed environments:

• 
  APi Group, Inc.
  
  is in the process of eliminating all 160 of its print servers across as many global sites.
• The Belgian company
  
  Aquafin
  
  used PrinterLogic to eliminate four print servers across 100 locations.
• 
  Zeus Industrial Products
  
  was able to eliminate the print servers in all four of its North American facilities, which include more than 1,600 users and 500 printers.

Posted by Steve Kelley

Solving iOS printing without an MDM
As IT professionals, it is inevitable we face the need to support iOS devices for printing. As of 2014, over 800 million iOS devices were in the market [1]. So, if your corporation is like PrinterLogic or the 1,500 plus customers we support with tight BYOD policies and traveling sales staff needing fast and convenient printing, iOS printing is likely a hot topic. There are a few officially licensed AirPlay printers available, but what about all those fancy Multi Function Printers (MFPs) that took a chunk of your budget last year? Let’s take a look at how PrinterLogic helps you securely utilize those printers with iOS devices.

Native iOS Printing
PrinterLogic enables you to integrate native iOS printing from iPhones, iPads, and even iPods into your printing environment. Customers ask me during demonstrations if their iOS devices need to be enrolled in a mobile device management (MDM) tool. MDM is not needed to use PrinterLogic’s awesome native iOS printing capabilities.
With PrinterLogic and our Mobile Printing and BYOD and Guest Printing features, you just create a MobilePrint queue. The next step is to simply add a few DNS entries that we have documented in our User Guide. Now, your MobilePrint Queue will show up on all on-network iOS devices. That is it! No downloading an application on each iOS device, no configuration on your end users part, and no confusion at where your end users should print to. That means less service desk calls and higher internal customer satisfaction.

All you need is one easy-to-use PrinterLogic native iOS print queue on all of your iOS devices. On top of that your users can send those mobile print jobs to any printer in your environment! No need to buy new printers, no MDM, and no integration headache.

End Users Experience
Now that end users have the mobile print queue available on all their iOS devices, how do they get print jobs from their device to the printers? From their iOS device a user selects the MobilePrint queue from within any application. The user then authenticates at a PrinterLogic enabled MFP and the job is pulled down using the printer’s console. PrinterLogic makes authentication simple too. You can use a RFID badge on supported MFPs, a computer browser, or even use the same iOS device to pull the job down to any printer.

Behind the Scenes
For those who want to know all the behind the scenes action, it is quite simple. Your PrinterLogic server is being setup with a MobileQueue that is a virtual AirPlay printer. That queue ends up on all your iOS devices through Apple’s DNS service discovery protocol, NOT BONJOUR MULTICASTING. Bonjour services sometimes get a bad reputation for causing a lot of unnecessary network traffic and issues with cross-network compatibility. However, with PrinterLogic’s iOS printing this is not the case. Because it is only the one virtual AirPlay printer that is using bonjour DNS-discovery service your network engineers will likely embrace this solution. To set up this bonjour service all that is required is four specifically formatted DNS entries. After that your MobilePrint Queue will be available on all your iOS devices. It is important to note that this can also be setup across different VLAN’s as long as IPP port 631 and DNS port 53 are open. So no worries about your segmented WIFI or guest network.

Tracking iOS Printing
You could definitely file this feature under “cost savings”, and this advantage is worthy of a separate highlight. The at-a-glance reporting of PrinterLogic makes it easy to determine which printers are being utilized the most, including which ones are now being used for iOS printing. Data points like date, time, printer, user, computer, color and document name are all readily available, enabling you to track usage throughout your entire organization in an incredibly granular way.

So if you are ready to bring iOS printing to your environment in the most cost-effective way, reach out to us and we’ll be happy to set you up with a live demonstration and even a free Proof of Concept to try out iOS and all our printing features in your environment.

(1) Cook, T. (Director) (2015, June 8). WWDC Keynote. World Wide Developer’s Conference. Lecture conducted from Apple, San Francisco.

Posted by Devin Anderson

By now we’re all aware that the growing mobile workforce is an inexorable trend. And that trend toward mobility and BYOD policies raises problems of interoperability that stem from device heterogeneity. But, as we’ve also seen, PrinterLogic is the enterprise mobile printing solution that effortlessly bridges the gaps between those different devices. If your mobile device has a browser, you can print. Simple as that.

That still leaves one area of massive concern: security. Who can initiate jobs? Who can release them at the physical printer? Which printers are available to which users? Those are all questions that will immediately spring to mind when the topic of mobile print solutions comes up. And PrinterLogic has the answers.

PrinterLogic’s Secure Printing capabilities help lock down your enterprise print environment. A more generic name for Secure Printing is server-less pull printing. What is pull printing? Well, think of a print job as being broken up into two parts. There’s the “push” that comes when the user sends the job to the printer queue. Then there’s the “pull” that comes when the user gives the okay for the printer to actually print the job. It’s designed not to be a fully automated process—it requires the intervention of authorized users to make sure they’re in control every step of the way.

With Secure Printing, users you’ve authorized through services like Active Directory will be allowed to send print jobs to a particular physical printer through a specific printer driver. Once they’ve sent the job, they can pull it down at that physical printer at their discretion. The practical benefit of this pull printing solution is that confidential documents aren’t left sitting in the paper tray for hours for all to see.

By using the printer’s actual driver as the “push” conduit, all original printer functionality is maintained. That way Secure Printing from PrinterLogic retains all the security features of the original driver while keeping you from being tied to any one printer manufacturer. On the “pull” end, any device with a browser—including PCs, Macs, Chromebooks, and almost all mobile devices—can access PrinterLogic’s web-based app in order to release print jobs securely.

Where enterprise security is concerned, sometimes a few extra hoops are necessary for added peace of mind. PrinterLogic gives you the option of implementing extra security features while retaining some level of convenience.

So, for example, you can introduce a badge or card reader as a release mechanism. In this scenario an aftermarket badge reader is either placed at the physical printer or is already built into the printing device. Like a lock and a key, the badge reader integrates with the existing badge system to release the print jobs to the printer associated with the badge.

Another security feature you can implement is printer console release. Here the PrinterLogic app can be installed directly on a printer, enabling users to log in and release their print jobs via the printer’s LCD. This method doesn’t require any additional hardware for supported devices.

Through clever pull printing solutions like these, PrinterLogic brings the incredible flexibility of mobile printing to your company while actually enhancing security.