Print Servers

Deathwish

Deathwish

Deathwish

Soldato
Joined
17 Oct 2002
Posts
2,956
Location
Cold Scotland :(
Just wondering how other people deal with hosting printers on the network?

We have HP PSA 4250s at the moment along with a small server doing Ricoh and other printers. I am considering replacing the PSAs with a couple of VM'd servers.

Other suggestions are welcome :)
 
Well firstly i would opt for printers with built in network interfaces, secondly unless you have a significant ammounts of printers within the organisation to manage i wouldnt see a problem locating them on your Dc and or members servers, i also dont see any issue with dedicating a couple of virtual machines to the task in hand except the fact youll need to use additional server licenses for whats quite a simplistic task.
 
We have around 250 printers spread all over the county, all network enabled. Enterprise agreement with MS sorts out the licences.
 
We did have 30 or so printers on our DC about 2 months ago. Taking into account that the DC at the time was basically our entire network, bar when it did a large amount of big print jobs, it coped pretty well.

We now have a dedicated quad core blade for print duties (functions as AV server as well), and although it hasnt been stressed yet, i cant see it struggling either.
 
I've always combined file and print servers, allthough given the move to dedicated appliances this is getting harder and harder! I've never been a fan of using a DC for anything other than DC duties it just makes things simpler allthough in small offices they have often ended up with file and print roles. Your VM solution is probably the one I would choose going forward it is the ideal application for virtualisation as it's so light weight.
 
Simple rule of thumb, windows print spoolers are evil and will break anything they touch.

Keep them away from anything important...

My work here is done!
 
Shaz]sigh[;12368958 said:
Simple rule of thumb, windows print spoolers are evil and will break anything they touch.

Keep them away from anything important...

My work here is done!
Click to expand...
True.
Deathwish said:
And, print drivers tend to be rubbish as well.
Click to expand...
And also true.


Tbh, not exactely recommended advice from a corporate point of view, but get Linux compatible printers and run a Linux based print server. Windows machines can connect to it fine and it'll be far more stable and resilient than a windows box will ever be for that sort of job.
 
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