In enterprise printing, is there anything more valuable than print uptime? Without it even the most full-featured print environment has zero benefit. And there are real, measurable consequences to being without print availability—because a hit to productivity, even temporary, can result in considerable lost revenue.
By the same token, the greater your printing uptime, the more productive your organization is able to be. Time spent printing is time that is not spent on the phone to the service desk over print-related issues (that goes for end users as well as support staff) or time spent waiting for print services to come back online. That translates to both costs saved and revenue earned.
So what are some ways you can maximize your printing uptime to ensure that your organization is being as productive and as cost-effective as possible?
Minimize driver conflicts: When print availability suffers, it’s not uncommon for a driver conflict to be at the heart of the issue. Maybe it has to do with a mix of 32-bit and 64-bit drivers in the same environment, too many drivers hosted on a print server, or workstation printer installations searching for drivers that are incorrectly named or unavailable. The way to boost printing uptime by minimizing driver-related conflicts is through improved driver management.
Rethink your print environment: Take a cold, hard look at your current print environment. Is it ever going to be able to provide the print uptime that you need? Sometimes big changes to your IT status quo, though daunting at first, are necessary to find the optimal configuration and the best long-term results. A restructure now could equate to huge gains in print availability down the road. Which is why you should identify opportunities for server consolidation, streamlined and centralized print management, increased ease of use, precise and reliable deployments, and built-in resiliency.
Eliminate print servers: On the path toward 100% printing uptime, this step might seem impossible. But rest assured: It’s not. Print servers—along with their quirks and vulnerabilities—tend to be the single biggest cause of printing downtime in organizations that continue to maintain traditional print environments. By eliminating print servers, you’re removing all the complexity and instability of print servers as well as their single points of failure – not to mention all the infrastructure and cost that they add to a print environment.
Implement PrinterLogic: Our next-generation print management solution can help you accomplish all of the above. By providing enterprise-wide administration from a single pane of glass, targeted printer deployments without the need for scripts and group policy objects (GPOs), effortless driver management that prevents driver conflicts, and the ability to eliminate print servers altogether, PrinterLogic is practically synonymous with print availability. Even in the event of a host server outage, PrinterLogic’s direct IP printing technology means your end users can continue printing as usual.
As a result, the independent research firm TechValidate found that 77% of over 300 surveyed organizations were able to increase their printing uptime by 15% or more by installing PrinterLogic’s solution (TVID: 5CC-DBB-F3A).
Just as importantly, the quest for maximum printing uptime doesn’t involve the upheaval you might fear. Fortune 500 companies with more than 2,500 printers have implemented our solution in one day (TVID: 4BF-B4D-090). Another TechValidate survey revealed that 67% of nearly 450 PrinterLogic customers were able to fully install our solution in under five days (TVID: 143-80E-5D9). Such amazing speed of deployment is almost unheard of in the enterprise.
There are several ways you can maximize print uptime. And PrinterLogic does them all—quickly and seamlessly.