Flexible Printer Setup

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Whether you're an SMB with private cloud hosted applications or a larger organization across multiple sites and countries, PaperCut products have the flexibility to leverage your existing infrastructure and practices. The choice is yours: operating system, print configuration and brand of printer.

Single site configurations Multiple site configurations Hosted configurations
Single print server Single print server Private Cloud
Multiple print servers Multiple print servers
No print server Multiple application servers
No print server

In all these environments, deploying print queues and drivers is a breeze when using Print Deploy. In addition to the above configurations, Print Deploy also supports computers that are not joined to a local domain.

Single site configurations

Single site, single print server

The simplest way to deploy PaperCut is to install directly onto a site's print server. For any small organization such as a school or business, the implementation doesn't need to be any more complex than this.

  • Simple setup in minutes
  • Suits most customers
  • Leverage existing infrastructure
Single-Site, Single-Server setup with PaperCut

Single Application Server, Single Print Server.

Planning to grow? For organizations that have more users, more offices and an increased emphasis on high availability, a site-server or multi-site, multi-server deployment can be added to your existing install to provide business continuity.

Single site, multiple print servers

It is common for sites with a single physical location to have multiple print servers.

Typical installations for:

  • iOS printing - Supporting printing from iOS devices may be deployed using a Mac server to compliment a Windows print server.
  • Separating departments or users - Schools dividing admin from general staff/student printing or organizations splitting business units.
  • Clustering - Each node of a clustered resource is installed as a print server

Each print server will need to be installed and configured to communicate with the Application Server, as a Secondary Print Provider.

Benefits:

  • printing load distribution
  • central application server administration
  • removes single-point sensitivity at print server layer

Considerations:

  • multiple print servers to manage
Single site, multi-server deployment using PaperCut

Single-site, multi-print server deployment.

Single site, no print server

Many smaller commercial and professional organizations don't have on site IT support to maintain print network infrastructure, and rely on an office administrator to simply connect notebooks and desktops to the office printer. You can print directly from your computer to a printer, without the need for a print server.

Managed print in small business with PaperCut's Direct Printing.

Benefits:

  • No skills needed to maintain a print server or manage print shares
  • Core PaperCut features such as shared account billing and Find-Me printing are supported
  • No additional PaperCut administration overhead

Considerations:

  • Suits commercial and professional customers

Multiple site configurations

Multiple sites, single print server

Not all multi-site installations rely on a print server at each site. This may be because the sites are small and don't warrant the resources, or because they are quite large and have resources centralized in a data center or on a private cloud.

Multi-site, single server implementation of PaperCut

Multi-site, single print server deployment

If all printing is centralized through a single Application Server, single print server installation, the installation is the same as a single site with a single server.

Benefits:

  • Central administration
  • Simple deployment
  • Simple user management
  • Simple queue and device management
  • Job roaming across sites - Find-Me printing

Considerations:

  • Requires robust WAN or
  • Spool file management

Including Direct Printing

Using the PaperCut Direct Print Monitor (a small monitoring component) on the desktops in 'Site B' will allow for the robust WAN consideration above to be removed. Print jobs are sent directly from the desktops to the printers avoiding a trip back to head office to be accounted for. The Direct Print Monitor can be installed manually or deployed as part of an organization's management of these desktops, and adds no additional overhead to the management of the PaperCut Application at the main site.

Adding resiliency with a Site Server

To ensure continuity of print services, PaperCut Site Server is recommended during a network outage between a site and Application Server.

Considering Private Cloud?

PaperCut Private Cloud deployments allow multi-site installations to centralize their Application Server in a data center. No single site is reliant on the other site being available, rather both sites only require an internet connection to connect to the Application Server.

Multiple sites, multiple print servers

Print servers deployed into remote sites allows for print jobs to be spooled locally. This reduces the need for jobs to be sent back and forth from a centralized print server to the remote destination printer.

Multi-site, multi-print server deployment with PaperCut

Multi-site, multi-print server deployment

In these cases, multiple print servers are deployed to handle load distribution and minimize bandwidth requirements.

Requiring a robust WAN, organizations choose this deployment if they have:

  • Low bandwidth between sites
  • Large print jobs generated on sites (architects, design firms, heavy graphics usage)
  • Existing infrastructure that supports this

This design is supported through the deployment of Secondary Print Providers on each of the print servers. Allowing print jobs to remain locally spooled, light-weight transactional data and control information is transmitted between sites.

Benefits:

  • Central administration
  • Simple user management
  • Reduced WAN traffic
  • Reflects commonly used architectures
  • Job roaming across sites - Find-Me printing

Considerations:

  • Requires robust WAN or Site Server
  • Requires more servers
  • Decentralized queue management
  • Multiple Find-Me queues
  • More complex setup

High availability with a Site Server

The PaperCut Site Server would add significant continuity in this design, installed onto one of the existing print servers. Providing local support for Application Server functions should the link between Primary and Secondary sites be unavailable.

Multiple sites, multiple application servers

PaperCut can be installed into a multiple site organization, as if each site itself were a separate installation of PaperCut. PaperCut has the ability to link separate Application Servers together for reporting purposes.

Multi-site, multi-application server deployment with PaperCut

Multi-site, multi-application server deployment

Each individual site then has the ability to function and be administered autonomously, relying on the links between the sites only when there is a need to run a report from the centralised reporting service.

Individual autonomous sites would use one of the previous installation options.

Benefits:

  • Doesn't require robust WAN
  • Enables decentralised and parallel deployment and setup
  • Decentralized administration
  • Enables rolling updates
  • Consolidated reporting is available

Considerations:

  • Each site requires an independent implementation
  • Overall setup for all sites requires more time
  • No job roaming across sites (Find-Me printing)

Multiple sites, no print server

Where an organization has many sites, the cost of adding a print server to each location just to support PaperCut can be cost prohibitive. Using the PaperCut Direct Print method of deployment, the requirement for infrastructure is removed as it tracks jobs from the point of origin (notebook or desktop).The Direct Print Monitor can be installed from a share to make deployment to each computer simple. Post offices, banks, construction sites and organizations that have a small number of desktops and printers per site, but a large number of sites may best suit this method.

Benefits:

  • No need for a print server in every site
  • Core PaperCut features such as Shared Account billing and Find-Me printing are supported
  • No additional PaperCut administration overhead

Considerations:

  • Suits Commercial and Professional customers

Hosted configurations

Private Cloud

A Private Cloud deployment isolates applications and data from others, reducing potential cloud security risks.

PaperCut Private Cloud is secure, efficient and firewall friendly.

Private Cloud print server deployment.

Your host provider, your platform...

Tips

To gain regular visibility over your multi-server, multi-site network, PaperCut's Central Reports can be scheduled and emailed to your network Administrators.

For more information on multi-site and multi-server configuration, please see Multi-Server and Multi-Site Deployments in the PaperCut Manual.

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