One statistic that we’ve cited before is that close to 60% of businesses in the United States, the United Kingdom, France and Germany experienced at least one print-related data breach in 2018.

The reason it’s worth citing again is because it rarely fails to take someone by surprise. Yet the real wake-up call is when you realize that each data breach cost the organization $400,000 on average.

The take-home message in all this is that print-related data breaches aren’t just more widespread than you might have thought. They’re also more expensive.

As organizations take steps to lock down sensitive information and beef up their IT security, it’s not uncommon for them to overlook printing. Or at least treat it like a secondary concern. But as the stats show, it’s a bad idea to take print security lightly.

Organizations in the financial, healthcare and education industries can be the exception. They’re the most proactive when it comes to finding and implementing secure print-management solutions. A lot of that comes down to the perception that those fields are where the risk is highest. Here’s the truth, though: No one can afford to treat print security like it’s optional.

 

Hardening Print Security with PrinterLogic

PrinterLogic puts a lot of emphasis on secure enterprise printing that’s also practical. That last part is important, because there’s no point in implementing all kinds of secure printing protocols if no one is going to actually follow through. Print security is only as strong as its end-user adoption.

That’s why our serverless printing infrastructure doesn’t aim simply to put a check mark in the “Secure” column. Ease of implementation and ease of use are crucial too. Here are a few features that really highlight that approach:

 

Secure Release Printing

PrinterLogic can boost everyday print security through pull printing. That removes some of the “autopilot” from routine printing by having users deliberately execute their print jobs once they’re physically present at a printer. Our secure release printing feature takes that one step further, requiring them to authenticate before the print job is actually printed.

Even though this splits printing into two steps, it actually gives the end user much more control over where their print jobs go. It also helps to ensure that sensitive documents don’t sit unclaimed in the output tray. And it’s super easy for admins to roll out.

 

Flexible Secure Release Options 

Flexibility and security aren’t mutually exclusive. Whereas some print-management solutions think secure enterprise printing hinges on restricting user choice, that’s not what we’re about. PrinterLogic offers secure options that fit with your preferred print workflow.

For example, end users can use their existing ID card or badge as a secure authentication mechanism. Or they can authenticate right on the printer’s embedded touch screen using PrinterLogic’s new dedicated control panel applications. (We’ve currently got one for Sharp and one for Canon, with more in the works.) In moderate-security environments, they can just enter a PIN.

 

CAC/PIV Authentication Support

In many high-level government and defense organizations, standard secure enterprise printing approaches just don’t cut it. They use Common Access Cards (CAC) or Personal Identity Verification (PIV) smart cards to securely authenticate their users.

PrinterLogic’s next-gen print-management solution fully supports multi-factor CAC/PIV printing. It integrates seamlessly into those tightly regulated print environments and overcomes the common barriers to implementing CAC/PIV printing. That allows agencies as well as their contractors to comply with federal regulations on print security and increase their FITARA/DCOI score.

 

Serverless Print Infrastructure

Print servers are a risk to print security. There’s no getting around it. Any server-based print-management solution that pools print jobs in a common queue is going to be a target for malicious actors. Why? Because it’s a single-vector attack that can yield a big payoff.

PrinterLogic’s serverless print infrastructure eliminates print servers without compromising functionality. Instead it uses direct IP to create robust one-to-one connections between clients and printers. With print servers eliminated, you and your end users get more than a highly available print environment. You also get a secure one too.

 

User-Friendly Print Security Is in Reach 

Secure enterprise printing isn’t a pipe dream. With PrinterLogic, organizations of all kinds have achieved major infrastructure reductions alongside increased print security.

Iowa’s Northwest Area Education Agency implemented our cloud solution, PrinterLogic SaaS, to give its users convenient secure-release printing (read the case study here). And EPIC Management, a healthcare-focused MSP, used PrinterLogic to enable medical staff to print EMR and PHI documents easily and securely (read the case study here).

Their experience shows that you can make print security an integral part of your corporate security without creating extra hassle for your end users or your IT staff. Start your free trial today and give PrinterLogic’s serverless printing infrastructure a test drive for 30 days.

Effective print management offers multiple opportunities to increase efficiency and reduce costs along the way.

The trouble is that “effective” part. We all know what print management looks like using standard enterprise print solutions, and it often involves a lot of damage control. Which is anything but effective.

Sure, you can try to be proactive and auto-deploy the right printers to the right users. But Group Policy and other deployment methods aren’t super reliable. Nor are print servers for that matter. Despite your best efforts, users can still find themselves unable to print when they need to.

As a result, they call the helpdesk. That only ends up putting IT in response mode. And that’s an inefficient, expensive way to operate.

So, how do you break out of response mode and move toward effective print management? Is it impossible if your organization is large and distributed? And what are the potential cost savings—through print infrastructure reduction, for example—that justify the effort?

 

The Answer Is Simple: Centralized Print Management

By implementing a solution like PrinterLogic, centralized print management can be achieved in SMBs as well as large-scale enterprises. It doesn’t matter how they’re organized or distributed. 

As a matter of fact, PrinterLogic’s centralized print management is designed to overcome the usual hurdles of distributed and complex organizations. Which means that the more distributed they are, the more gains they’re likely to see.

Centralized print management is important because it removes the fragmentation that arises when your organization has multiple physical locations or lots of specialized departments. It simplifies things and allows IT to accomplish more with fewer resources.

In PrinterLogic’s case, it has even more advantages than your usual enterprise print solutions. Our centralized admin console allows IT to manage the entire print environment from a single pane of glass. Printers can be deployed to individuals or entire groups of end users without even touching a GPO, and drivers can be consolidated in one convenient repository.

On top of that, PrinterLogic’s serverless print infrastructure is able to eliminate print servers at the same time. Managing printers is streamlined while also creating a huge opportunity for a print infrastructure reduction.

 

Centralize Your Print Management and Cost Reductions Will Follow

It’s easy to think about print infrastructure reduction just in terms of the money it will save on hardware and licensing. And that’s not wrong. Getting rid of print servers definitely eliminates those obvious expenses.

But there are not-so-obvious cost savings bound up in that too. With print servers gone in favor of PrinterLogic’s low-footprint, high-availability print solution, you no longer spend time dealing with single points of failure, crashed spoolers, rogue print jobs, mismatched drivers and all the other headaches. Damage control becomes a thing of the past.

And you see the benefits of PrinterLogic’s centralized print management on the user side too. With reliable deployments and increased print uptime, there’s no need for them to call the helpdesk. Thanks to PrinterLogic’s self-service portal, they can easily identify and safely install printers all by themselves. That’s what effective print management looks like.

 

Yes, You Can Centralize Print Management and Reduce Costs Too

After years spent struggling with legacy enterprise print solutions, many IT professionals say, “PrinterLogic sounds perfect, but it won’t work in my company. We’re just too complex.”

Aquafin actually said something similar. They’re a large Belgian company that oversees 281 wastewater treatment plants and 1,394 pumping stations throughout the country. They were using notoriously tricky Novell IP printers across 100 corporate offices and needed something more streamlined. To them, PrinterLogic “sounded too good to be true.”

In practice, PrinterLogic did exactly what they hoped. Our serverless print infrastructure was the cornerstone of two major print-environment migrations. Ultimately Aquafin eliminated all of its print servers and enjoyed centralized print management across its 100 remote locations. You can read the full case study here.

Isn’t it high time that you centralized your print management and left yesterday’s enterprise print solutions behind as well? Start your free trial of PrinterLogic today to see how attainable effective print management can be.

Up to now, there’s never really been a golden age for managing devices in the enterprise. Especially where printers are concerned. Back before computers and printers were networked, they were heavy, cumbersome things that needed to be deployed and configured manually.

When networking became more commonplace, admins were able to do more of their device management remotely and automatically. But it still called for a lot of painstaking manual intervention.

And just when things might have started to level off, the mobile revolution hit. New devices with very different feature sets hit the scene. Suddenly enterprise mobile printing, BYOD printing and cloud printing became a thing. Print-management solutions that had been in place for decades weren’t equipped to handle it. Admins once again found themselves doing a lot more manual management.

So, clearly, times have changed. What you might not realize is that device management has too. Next-gen solutions like PrinterLogic are bringing more scalability, functionality and ease of use to print management.

 

Enterprise-wide Mobile Printing

Many admins have struggled to fit mobile printing into their organizations. As powerful as today’s smartphones and tablets are, they’re just not designed for easy interfacing with printers. At best, organizations find that they can only support limited print functionality for a small number of mobile devices. Otherwise it’s just too much effort.

PrinterLogic’s enterprise mobile printing capabilities allow admins to extend printing to any mobile user regardless of their OS. Android and iOS users can print natively from their devices. Other mobile users can take advantage of PrinterLogic’s email-to-print functionality and simply send their print jobs to a dedicated printer-specific email address.

The great thing is that it’s incredibly manageable. Using PrinterLogic’s intuitive admin console, IT can easily authorize certain end users and printers for mobile printing. No GPOs required. What’s even better is that PrinterLogic’s serverless printing infrastructure accomplishes all this without the need for a single print server.

 

Plus BYOD and Guest Printing

Along with making enterprise mobile printing easy to implement and manage, PrinterLogic takes the pain out of BYOD and guest printing. If employees bring and use their own devices, they can take advantage of the same PrinterLogic functionality. In fact, you don’t even need to associate guest users with the in-house network.

Unlike the mobile printing features that legacy print management solutions offer, with PrinterLogic, there’s no client-side software that needs to be installed on the mobile device. Users don’t have to have a special app or a software bridge to print to authorized printers. PrinterLogic handles everything and makes printing intuitive and transparent for BYOD and guest users.

It’s easy on admins too. Instead of jumping through hoops to set up BYOD and guest printing, they can offer a universal solution that’s reliable, secure and straightforward. That’s as true for our robust cloud-printing solution, PrinterLogic SaaS, as it is for our on-prem solution, PrinterLogic Web Stack.

 

Changing How We Think of Device Management

IT pros who’ve wrestled with print servers and GPOs for years might find it hard to believe that device management in today’s complex enterprise could be such a piece of cake. But PrinterLogic has changed what you can expect from your print-management solutions.

Just look at Hunton & Williams, LLP. Here’s a large international law firm with 1,700 users and 700 printers in a Citrix environment. Their IT team needed to roll out enterprise mobile printing that was easy to use and easy to support. They also knew that common cloud printing solutions wouldn’t cut it. By implementing PrinterLogic, they were able to provide guests and mobile users with quick and easy print capabilities. The firm also tightened print security and eliminated all of its print servers in the process (read the case study here).

PrinterLogic can finally usher in a golden age of device management at your enterprise-scale organization too. Schedule a demo of PrinterLogic Web Stack or PrinterLogic SaaS today and try out our serverless printing infrastructure completely free of charge for 30 days.

Chief Operating Officer Brandon Williams

It was 2016, and I was standing in line with our company’s CEO and founder, John Anthony Smith, at a Citrix conference. He’s the gregarious, outgoing type, so he naturally got to talking with the person who was standing in front of us. That person said he was from a company called PrinterLogic.

It was a name we’d heard before, and we asked him to tell us about PrinterLogic’s core product.

He explained that it was a software solution that lets you eliminate print servers and print seamlessly even in Citrix environments. We instantly wanted to know more. It sounded like just the sort of thing our clients would be ecstatic about.

You see, at Conversant Group, we advise all kinds of organizations—primarily large North American law firms—on how to optimize their IT infrastructure and security. If a solution like PrinterLogic was able to streamline printing and printer deployment while reducing infrastructure, it was a tool we needed to have in our arsenal.

We took some time to test PrinterLogic ourselves and put it through the paces. In 2018 we started offering the solution to our customers. Since then, we’ve migrated five customers with a combined fleet of 200 printers to PrinterLogic.

What are the advantages of PrinterLogic, and why have we become such passionate advocates for it.

I’m glad you asked.

 

Enhanced Citrix printing while eliminating print servers

Many of our customers use Citrix solutions like XenDesktop. It’s a natural fit. Their users want a consistent computing experience no matter where they happen to be, and their IT teams want to be able to manage that experience without a lot of fuss.

But anyone who’s managed a virtual environment knows that a universally consistent desktop doesn’t always pair well with location-specific printers. There’s also the problem of having to use a server-based print infrastructure. When print servers crash, everyone loses the ability to print. And attorneys and paralegals really, really need to print.

With PrinterLogic, we deploy the software client on the VDI master image. The moment an attorney logs on, that client determines local printers and automatically make them available in the current session. The added bonus is that we can unplug the print server, eliminating that single point of failure forever.

 

Self-service printer installation

As I mentioned above, law firms are already very dynamic and attorneys want to be mobile. They want to work from literally anywhere in the world. And they don’t want to have to jump through hoops to do something basic like printing.

In the past, if roaming users wanted to install their own printers, they had to map them themselves. That invariably led to problems. Even if you’re fairly skilled with computers, what happens when you see one printer named “cga-01765” and another named “cga-01766”? How can you be sure which is the right one?

PrinterLogic has a web-based self-service installation portal that allows end users to find their nearby printers on a floor plan map and then install them with one click. An attorney who’s traveling between San Francisco and New York doesn’t have to worry about not being able to print when she arrives on a different coast.

This way, end users get the consistency they want. They also get freedom to install printers as they need them.

 

The PrinterLogic MSP portal

The nature of our business is that we’re dealing with very different, fast-paced firms that are distributed all over the continent. For us to deliver superior service to our customers, we need to be able to view and manage their environments quickly and easily. Ideally from a single pane of glass.

It used to be that we’d have to log into a customer’s environment, drill into their systems, find where their printers were managed, and then start updating their drivers or administering their printers. A process like that can be really frustrating when every second counts.

PrinterLogic puts a lot of emphasis on centralized management, and that goes for organizations like ours too. The MSP portal consolidates all of our PrinterLogic customers under one console. We can easily make all the tweaks and changes we need to in one place. We can even manage print queues. The end result is that our customers see much better response times and uninterrupted printing.

 

No feedback is good feedback

PrinterLogic has made it possible for us to manage multiple print environments far more efficiently while improving the print experience for our customers.

To give just one example: One of our customers is a 300-user law firm based in New York. After we advised them to migrate to PrinterLogic, their number of help-desk tickets dropped by half. Nearly all those tickets had been print-related.

Does that mean our customers now shower us with praise because of PrinterLogic? No, it’s actually better than that. The fact is that we don’t really hear about printing at all anymore. And that’s the way it should be. Because when it comes to printing, things should be so seamless, so intuitive and so effortless that the whole infrastructure becomes invisible.

You can read the full case study of our PrinterLogic experience here.

According to Quocirca’s Global Print Security Landscape Report 2019, nearly 60% of businesses in the United States, the United Kingdom, France and Germany were the victims of at least one print-related data breach in the prior year. Each print-related data loss cost these businesses around $400k on average.

Worse still is that 32% of print-security incidents like these were found to be caused by internal users. That means practices and protocols within the organization created an opportunity for almost one-third of these breaches to occur.

 These stats don’t just highlight the importance of secure print management in every environment. They also highlight how organizations have the ability—and the need—to take active and effective steps toward hardening their print security.

 The first and most fundamental step is choosing the right enterprise printing solution. And there’s a strong argument why that should involve cloud printing.

 

How the cloud can boost secure print management

With a solution like PrinterLogic SaaS (formerly PrinterCloud), migrating your print infrastructure to the cloud has a dual benefit. One of these benefits is that it allows for more flexibility. The other is that it creates a platform for a more secure print environment.

Let’s be honest, those two aspects normally don’t pair well. Increased flexibility is often seen as the enemy of security. And that might be true when you’re dealing with legacy enterprise printing solutions like print servers.

But when we’re talking about PrinterLogic SaaS and its unique combination of centralized management and direct-IP printing, flexibility and security can actually complement one another. Here’s how:

• Print access is easier to limit and enforce. With admins now able to manage the entire print environment from a single pane of glass, it’s more convenient and more efficient for them to configure and monitor targeted printer deployments. PrinterLogic SaaS also eliminates the hassle of GPOs and scripts while allowing for more granular control. In short, print access is restricted to the right users.
• It removes single attack vectors. By breaching a print server, a malicious actor can gain access to the print queues (among other things) for every connected user. Unlike common cloud-printing solutions, the highly scalable, direct-IP paradigm of PrinterLogic SaaS decentralizes printing. Print jobs stay between individual clients and individual printers. What’s more, it minimizes print infrastructure by eliminating the need for print servers.
• Secure release printing is standard. PrinterLogic SaaS also eliminates the need to source third-party enterprise printing solutions to introduce additional layers of security. With secure release printing functionality now included in PrinterLogic SaaS at no extra charge, organizations can seamlessly roll out increased print security across the organization.

 

Secure print release with PrinterLogic SaaS

That last point merits a little more detail.

 PrinterLogic SaaS secure release printing is the user-facing counterpart to secure print management. What it does is turn routine cloud printing into a straightforward, two-step, on-demand process. Instead of print jobs being executed automatically when a user clicks “Print,” they’re temporarily held at the initiating workstation—not on a vulnerable shared server.

 When the user reaches the destination printer, they authenticate using one of several possible methods: a badge/card reader, a PIN, the printer’s control panel, or even PrinterLogic’s Print Release App. The printer then executes the print job. This keeps sensitive documents from being stolen before the initiating user can retrieve them, from being forgotten in output trays, from being sent to the wrong printer, or even just glimpsed by another user.

 Thanks to the innate flexibility of PrinterLogic SaaS, its secure printing functionality is cross-platform and vendor agnostic. That avoids the hardware and software lock-in associated with many other enterprise printing solutions.

 

Easy to test, easy to migrate

Testing PrinterLogic SaaS is simple. All you have to do is take a few moments to sign up for the free trial and you’ll be able to take the next 30 days to experience the security and ease of cloud printing with PrinterLogic SaaS. If you’re like the folks at Clark County, Nevada (read the case study here), it won’t take long for you to appreciate the incredible efficiency and potential that PrinterLogic SaaS offers.

Once you’re satisfied, the PrinterLogic SaaS migration tool makes it just as easy to convert your existing print environment to our cloud-based platform. From that point forward, you’ll be able to enjoy effortless, highly available cloud printing along with the peace of mind that comes from secure print management.