Serverless Print Management – Making the Move to Cloud Print

Why the Cloud?

In the modern world of reliable and speedy internet connections, more and more organisations are ditching their traditional on-premises servers and going cloud-based. This is also driven by the higher demand for work-from-home and hybrid working.

Services like AWS (Amazon Web Services) and Microsoft Azure provide a plethora of cloud-based management tools. This allows IT admins to manage devices in much the same way that the on-premises server did.

Benefits of Cloud Services

• Cost savings – Removing on-premises equipment can save thousands on hardware costs each year.
• Scalability – As your organisation grows or reduces, you can easily adapt your cloud services to suit.
• Security – Cloud services offer some of the best backup and security features around, keeping your data safe and secure.

However, there is one thing that causes an IT headache when going serverless…

Printing.

Print Servers

On-premises print servers provide a convenient, centralised location to manage printers on the network. Printer drivers can have defaults configured and updated with just a few clicks and users can easily be assigned the correct printer for their department. Without a server there is no longer a central point of control.

A simple fix if you only have a small number of users (let’s say 10-20), you could manually install each printer on each device. It’s tedious, but gets the job done.

But what if you have a more devices to manage? What options do you have?

Cloud Print Management

Luckily, there are several ways that you can still manage your print fleet across large organisations. We will go through a few options available to give you an idea of which may be suitable for you.

• Microsoft Universal Print – Manages all printers via a Microsoft Azure Portal. Being Microsoft’s offering intended to replace an on-premises print server, end-users can expect a seamless experience. All this does come at a cost though. Pricing is dependent on the number of prints processed which can soon add up.
• Microsoft Intune – Designed to manage all devices which are looking to connect to an organisation’s network. This includes printer management although you will require some knowledge of Powershell scripting.
• 3^rd Party Software – There are a several software providers that offer cloud printing solutions. Printer Logic, Printix and Papercut are some of the big players. They all work in a similar way which requires a small piece of software to be installed on each computer. This software then relays information about each printer back to the cloud server and allows admins to manage each printer accordingly.

Which option is best for you depends on your current setup, the size of your organisation and how much you want to spend on the solution.

If you want to speak to someone for some more guidance, give us a call or leave us a message via chat. We’re here to help!