How Pull Printing and Secure Release Printing Are Different—and Why You Should You Use Them

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Printer cybersecurity hacks are on the rise in 2024, with 61% of organizations experiencing print-related data loss within the past year. Forgotten documents in the printer tray, data-in-motion attacks, and printer hacks all pose a very real risk for businesses, with the average data breach costing $4.45 million in 2023.

Despite these risks, most CIOs place print security low on their agenda. Just 27% of SMBs say they’re confident in the security of their print infrastructure, and many businesses struggle to maintain the security of print management software, secure printing in remote work environments, and protect confidential information from being printed.

As print security concerns grow, enterprise organizations are beginning to pay attention. Print management trends show that 79% of organizations plan to increase their print security spending over the next year. Likewise, print security maturity is slowly improving, with the number of print security leaders increasing from 18% to 27% between 2022 and 2023.

To combat data loss in their print environments, businesses are typically turning to pull printing and secure release printing.

At first, these two printer security methods seem pretty similar. That’s because they share a common two-step format. It looks like this:

  1. The user initiates a print job as usual. However, the printing process is on hold until the next step.
  2. The user intentionally releases the waiting print job to a specific printer.

The key difference between the two methods lies in that release step. In contrast to pull printing, secure release printing requires some form of user authentication. That commonly involves swiping their badge or entering a PIN code on the printer’s control panel.

 

What makes PrinterLogic’s secure printing unique?

With PrinterLogic’s serverless print infrastructure, both pull printing and secure release printing follow this general description. But PrinterLogic’s ability to eliminate print servers adds an extra layer of security and convenience.

Instead of holding the pending print job on a server, creating a prime target for a malicious actor, PrinterLogic holds the print job on the user’s workstation. Once released, the print job travels straight to the destination printer. That allows for more secure printing by design.

And the flexibility of PrinterLogic’s serverless printing enables any network printer to become a pull or secure release printer, so you can make legacy machines a part of your secure printing infrastructure.

 

When should you use pull printing?

From a security standpoint, pull printing is a step up from conventional printing. That alone is reason enough to implement it.

Pull printing is especially handy for remote workers and mobile employees who travel to different offices. Thanks to PrinterLogic’s versatile pull-printing functionality, they can print their documents wherever it’s most convenient. They don’t have to install any printers or drivers at a particular location. That saves them time, and it saves IT hassle.

You can also use pull printing to curb waste and build sustainable printing practices in the workplace. Though many organizations recycle, paper still makes up 26% of total waste in landfills. Paper production is also an enormous strain on the environment, leading to deforestation and massive use of energy and water resources. Since the average worker uses 660 pounds of paper every year, pull printing can do a lot to save trees, energy, and office spending. In fact, one organization that implemented pull printing was able to reduce their print consumables usage by more than 50%.

With pull printing, the release step is intentional, meaning print jobs that users no longer want (or forget about) don’t end up being printed in the first place. Since the average U.S. company spends $120 million on printed paper every year, all that unused paper and toner can add up to big cost savings over time.

 

When should you use secure release printing?

PrinterLogic’s Secure Release Printing is ideal for employees who deal with highly confidential information, typically at a designated secure printer. This form of secure printing is for organizations that really want to protect sensitive documents—think healthcare, legal, financial or government—while also enjoying the same benefits that pull printing brings.

There are multiple ways that end users can authenticate securely with a PrinterLogic printer:

  • Badge/card: Employees can easily swipe their ID card or badge through a printer’s integrated reader or a dedicated external device.
  • Embedded control panel: Release takes place once users enter a PIN or login credentials right on the printer’s control panel. PrinterLogic SaaS now has native control panel applications for every major printer brand.
  • Browser-based: PrinterLogic features a web-based release portal that enables users to authenticate from almost any device.
  • Mobile App: Android and iOS users can view, release, and delete secure print jobs right from their smartphones via the PrinterLogic Mobile App.

Importantly, PrinterLogic doesn’t eliminate print servers and then forces you to install a bunch of new hardware. You can use your current badge/card readers and your existing print infrastructure with these authentication mechanisms.

For proof, look no further than EPIC Management, L.P., a managed services provider for healthcare organizations. They needed to comply with the industry’s strict regulations on protected healthcare information (PHI) but didn’t want to add unnecessary cost and complexity. PrinterLogic’s secure printing fit the bill. Read the case study here.

PrinterLogic SaaS Is a Truly Serverless Printing Solution

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Originally published March 17, 2020. 

The cloud came with a lot of promises. You’d be able to reduce physical infrastructure, manage everything from one place, and enjoy more flexibility and features. Migration to the cloud would free up IT resources and be more cost-effective.

As most IT professionals know, printing was one thing that proved harder to shift.

You can take your print management software and host it in the cloud, obviously. But some of the old problems don’t go away. You’re still stuck with single points of failure, awkward deployment mechanisms, on-prem servers, limited security, and all the other drawbacks of legacy print management solutions.

That’s why PrinterLogic SaaS is unique.

Our industry-leading serverless printing infrastructure realizes the promise of what cloud computing was meant to be. It lets you fully eliminate print servers from your organization while gaining virtually effortless, totally serverless print management from a single pane of glass. You get centralized management of printers and drivers along with powerful reporting—all without having to rely on scripting or GPOs.

Unlike some “cloud-optimized” print management software, PrinterLogic is a true SaaS offering. It’s not some cloud-hosted shortcut that leaves you stuck with server licensing, configuration, and maintenance. Nor does it force you and your users to tunnel through a VPN.

PrinterLogic SaaS also isn’t a hybrid approach that makes you keep servers onsite. Solutions like that involve too many compromises. When we say PrinterLogic eliminates print servers completely and permanently, we mean it.

All the Features (and More), None of the Infrastructure

Okay, so we know that PrinterLogic’s serverless printing eliminates print servers for good. How does serverless print management with PrinterLogic SaaS stack up against the status quo?

Centralized Management 

When you eliminate print servers, you don’t just get rid of physical infrastructure. You eliminate all the licensing, migration, and other headaches that they entail. In its place, you can manage all printing from a single location.

Simple Implementation

 It’s easy to configure PrinterLogic SaaS and additional security features. Best of all, there’s no need to reconstruct your current print environment.

Unlimited Scalability 

Cloud printing adapts to your needs and seamlessly scales with you as you grow—from a single site to multiple offices, across multiple locations.

Convenient for End Users

All end users, regardless of role, can print where and when they need to—with minimal effort and less helpdesk tickets.

Cost-efficient

With cloud printing, print jobs become more deliberate, and you save by removing infrastructure and consolidating vendors and licenses.

Enhanced Security

Protect yourself from data breaches with secure and safe serverless printing. Confidential data doesn’t remain at rest in the cloud and stays encrypted until it’s behind your firewall. 

Hardened Security That’s Easy to Implement and User-Friendly

Considering the overlooked importance of print security, it’s worth highlighting just how secure PrinterLogic SaaS is.

AWS-hosted. PrinterLogic SaaS is AWS-hosted and therefore meets rigorous standards for security and compliance.

Zero-trust Printing

PrinterLogic supports microsegmentation and integrates with native Identity Provider (IdP) integrations to keep your data secure. Features like serverless pull printing and Secure Release Printing are now augmented by simple badge release and offline secure print release in PrinterLogic SaaS.

More Release Options

Along with pull printing and Secure Release, serverless printing offers other release options for serverless secure printing. These include multifactor authentication (MFA) such as CAC/PIV as well as native control panel apps.

IdP integration

Integration with leading cloud-based identity providers (IdPs) such as Okta and Azure AD means users’ credentials are strong and centrally managed with the help of security experts.

Federal Compliance

Ours is the only print management software that’s been certified to meet stringent U.S. government security standards like FIPS 140-2.

Seamless User Adoption

As security isn’t effective unless end users adopt it, we’ve always put a lot of emphasis on usability. PrinterLogic’s serverless pull printing, for example, is super easy for them to make a part of their everyday printing workflow.

Schedule a Risk-Free, Cost-Free Demo

The best way to understand exactly how these benefits play out in the real world is to see our serverless printing infrastructure in action. And the best way to do that is to schedule a demo of PrinterLogic SaaS. It takes just a few seconds to sign up. After that, you can deploy PrinterLogic as a proof of concept in your own environment entirely free of charge for 30 days.

You’ll quickly discover that PrinterLogic is efficient, flexible, secure, scalable and reliable—everything that printing should be, and everything that server-based printing isn’t.

That’s why PrinterLogic SaaS isn’t just print management software in the cloud. It’s better to think of it as what print management looks like on cloud nine.

5 Ways Print Management Can Save Your School Money

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Budget cuts, underfunding, and rising costs are constant challenges for America’s public schools. Because the U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) is growing 13.5% faster than public education budgets, the education funding gap is only worsening.

Certainly, it’s a complex problem with no clear-cut solutions. But there’s one simple way schools can save money and reduce costs: by making the switch to serverless printing. It’s a move that can save public schools thousands of dollars annually, allowing them to reduce waste and put precious funds toward more important causes.

Wondering how it’s possible? Let’s discuss five ways smarter print management helps schools save big.

1. Reduce Costs by Eliminating Print Servers

Print servers are a massive drain on public school budgets. The hardware alone can cost schools $2,000 to $5,000 per server. That cost doesn’t account for the money spent on continuous maintenance nor the time spent on manual updating for fixes and security patches. Print servers are also highly susceptible to security vulnerabilities and the physical theft of sensitive documents. Even worse, they create a single point of failure for printing. If one server crashes, it limits everyone in the school from continuing to print until the issue is resolved.

Serverless printing resolves these pain points by ditching the costly legacy architecture in favor of a streamlined, secure direct IP print environment. Serverless printing reduces the attack surface, keeps data secure, and puts thousands of dollars back into the school’s budget.

2. Leverage Quota Management to Reduce Print Jobs

Traditional print environments make it extremely difficult to control printing costs. The average American uses more than 700 pounds of paper every year, and without print quotas, teachers and administrators are likely to print whatever they want with little oversight.

In contrast, serverless printing allows schools to restrict print usage to a sensible amount. It forces staff to take a more thoughtful approach to printing activities and act more responsibly, rather than sporadically. Print quotas can be assigned by modes, too, so users limit costly activities such as color printing or collated printing. Quota management is simple and intuitive, allowing administrators to create custom settings quickly and easily.

Print quotas save schools money, and they also help schools become more sustainable and eco-friendly — without making huge changes to internal processes.

3. Avoid Security Breaches with Secure Release/Pull Printing

Unmanaged print servers create massive amounts of waste. In fact, 70% of all office waste comes from paper, and up to 30% of all print jobs are never picked up from the printer. Not only is all that waste bad for the environment, it also creates a serious security risk.

Serverless print management eliminates the security issue by utilizing secure release/pull printing. With this added security layer, users send their print job and the job is held in the print queue until the user arrives to authenticate it at the printer. This approach greatly enhances security and increases the confidentiality of sensitive documents. It also reduces print waste and saves schools more money.

4. Minimize the Need for Costly Printing Materials

When public schools implement print features like quota management and secure release printing, staff members are more judicious with their printing. They think twice before they print personal or unnecessary documents, causing the total number of print jobs to shrink significantly. 

Since the average organization spends $1,200 annually in print materials per employee, this reduction equates to big savings. Schools that print less can also buy fewer print materials, including costly ink and toner. These cost reductions make a big impact over time, giving schools the freedom to use funds for more important aspects of education.

5. Reduce Help Desk Tickets and Reliance on IT

IT costs can be another major drain on public schools’ budgets. IT support isn’t cheap, and as much as 50% of all help desk tickets are printer-related. Print servers also make it difficult for IT professionals to gain visibility and insight into printing activity, making it tough for them to identify areas for cost reduction.

Serverless printers help mitigate this problem by reducing the number of print jobs. By doing so, there is also a lower need for IT staff. Cloud-based solutions also provide greater visibility and insights that empower IT staff to do their job quickly and efficiently, so schools can spend less on IT support and more on direct education needs.

Switch to Serverless Printing and Save Now

Print servers are a burden on public school budgets, staff members, and IT professionals alike. They’re costly, inefficient, clunky, and lack the oversight needed for schools with limited budgets. So, when schools are seeking simple ways to reduce costs and save money, we always recommend eliminating print servers as the first step.

Modern print management solutions make it easy for schools with limited budgets to increase efficiency, collaboration, visibility, and more. They reduce the number of print jobs and help desk tickets related to printing while also making schools more efficient, sustainable, and secure.

If your school is ready to make the switch to serverless printing, get in touch with Vasion today. We’d love to help you discover many benefits that come with the future of print management.

PrinterLogic Receives 2023 MSP Today Product of the Year Award

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We are thrilled to announce that PrinterLogic, the leading print management solution from Vasion, has been honored with the prestigious 2023 MSP Today Product of the Year Award! Presented by TMC, a global media company and owner of MSP Today News, this recognition highlights the exceptional innovation and successful deployment of PrinterLogic through the channel.

“Winning the 2023 MSP Today Product of the Year award serves as a testament to Vasion’s mission of empowering MSPs to make digital transformation available to everyone,” remarks Jay Christensen, VP of Channel Sales for Vasion. “We are fully dedicated to making print and digital workflow management easier and more profitable for MSPs, allowing them to thrive in a competitive landscape and exceed client expectations.”

PrinterLogic has revolutionized print management for Managed Service Providers (MSPs), addressing the complexities of managing printers across diverse IT infrastructures and providing a modern solution for the cloud era. With PrinterLogic, MSPs can eliminate print servers, simplify print management processes, and enhance security for their customers’ print environments.

“It gives me great pleasure to honor Vasion as a 2023 recipient of TMC’s MSP Today Product of the Year Award for their innovative solution, PrinterLogic,” said Rich Tehrani, CEO, of TMC. “Our judges were very impressed not only with the features and value of the solution but also with Vasion’s Channel strategy to expand their market share and provide first-class service to their customers.”

The award recognizes PrinterLogic’s outstanding features, value, and channel strategy, contributing to its growing market share and customer satisfaction. With customers worldwide, PrinterLogic has established itself as a leader in the print management space, offering unparalleled reliability, security, and advanced functionality.

Its multi-tenant management platform, combined with cloud-managed direct IP printing, enables MSPs to centralize print management, enhance security, and deliver exceptional print experiences for their customers. With features like Off-Network Printing and Secure Release Printing, MSPs can ensure data security and compliance while providing convenient and user-friendly print solutions.

Vasion is grateful to TMC and MSP Today News for recognizing PrinterLogic’s innovation and impact in the MSP community. This award motivates Vasion to continue delivering cutting-edge solutions and empowering MSPs to thrive in the digital age.

To learn more about PrinterLogic and how it can transform your print management capabilities, visit https://www.printerlogic.com/msp-partner/ and request a demo. Join the growing community of MSPs who have discovered the power of PrinterLogic and experienced the benefits of modern print management.

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