When you connect your printers and MFPs to the network, you and your users can benefit in a variety of ways:
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Save money: Networked printers cost less per user. |
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Improve productivity: it is cost effective to add highly capable printers that have higher resolutions, faster speeds, advanced paper handling, and more to your network when all of your company's users can benefit from them. |
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Streamline management: you can manage networked printers remotely. |
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Shared and networked printers tend to be larger in order to support the workload from multiple users, and they are also more expensive. However, when you calculate the cost of a networked printer while considering the larger user base, you will find that networking printers saves money. Additionally, when you support fewer printers, you can standardize on a single vendor and a few select models and reduce the variety of inkjet refills or laser cartridges (consumables) you stock, making inventory management less cumbersome.
How many of the personal printers in your organization are being used at this moment? Probably few to none. Even in paper-intensive companies, printers are rarely active for more than one hour per day. The majority of the time, printers set idle.
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One method of sharing printers and MFPs over the network is to connect them to file servers.
However, there are issues with this approach:
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The network server is far away from the users. Servers usually reside in a computer room or some other secure location to which only a few people have access. Because printer cables are short, this means the network server-attached printers must be close to the server. If the server is accessible to the users, you have a security problem. |
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Print jobs can be slower. Printers attached to a file server must compete with the server's resources to manage and process print jobs. If the server is taxed for other reasons, print performance may suffer. |
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You cannot use the scan features of your AIOs and MFPs: When the AIO or MFP is attached directly to a file server, the communication is one way: out to the AIO or MFP. For the scanning function to work, the AIO or MFP must move from the scanner into the server. |
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So how do you resolve this impasse? By using a print server.
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