Sales Tip: Why Print Servers Should be Key Part of Enterprise IT

A print server offers two main benefits for your customers: centralized administration and centralized print processing. The former greatly reduces the stress on administrators caused by the constantly changing variety of printers, users, drivers and operating systems.

Centralized print processing offers various advantages:

• Cost accountability: print usage per user or user group can be monitored
• Security: print jobs can be stored centrally and released on demand to avoid critical data sitting in hallway printers or to eliminate the need for a personal printer
• Systems monitoring: all printers, queues etc. can be supervised and maintained to avoid systems downtime

For more information on how ThinPrint can help your customers deploy a print server today, please visit: www.thinprint.com/serverengine or contact thinprint@interact.be

Tech Tip: How to Design a Print Server

A print server can be set up either as a virtual or physical machine. For added security the print server can be clustered with Windows Cluster Services. Windows Server 2003 is still the preferred operating system for a print server as it is supported by the largest number of printer drivers, regardless of the added performance benefits found in Windows Server 2008 R2.

Suggestions based on our experience:

• Print job rendering generates a relatively high level of CPU usage, if your customers have a high volume of simultaneous jobs, or need to print many high resolution graphics or PDFs, we recommend a quad-core.
  
  
• 4GB RAM is sufficient for most environments.
  
  
• Windows Server 2003 can handle around 1500 queues and IP ports. The limitation of a Windows Server 2008 R2 is on resources used while printing, not in managing printer queues.
  
  
• ThinPrint decreases resource usage by allowing numerous printers to print via one ThinPrint port, thereby reducing the overall number of ports required.

Note: These parameters are largely dependent on print volume, print job type, the clients administrators use and how many different printer drivers and ports are loaded.

We can assist in finding the optimum settings for the print servers of your customers.

Please contact us for an unconditional quote.

Webinar: Changes with Microsoft VDA Licensing

July 1st Microsoft announced that under the new VDA licensing program the access to Windows based virtual desktops with Microsoft Office would be FREE as long as the client device is running Windows 7 with current software assurance. With Microsoft simplifying their licensing models for virtual desktops and other VDI vendors such as VMware and Citrix continuing to expand their offerings, VDI continues to be a hot topic in the IT world!

Listen to hear why now is the time to start with VDI »