“Printers are the bane of my existence.”
That’s how every IT strategist like you feels in traditional print environments. You’ve probably dreamt of a life without print servers for some time. Yet, there they are. And they keep popping up as your school grows and the district expands.
They’ve spread like the plague, you’ve got too many to manage, and you just want them gone. The problem is, you don’t know where to start, how to do it, or if it’s possible to eliminate print servers at all.
We’ve got news for you. It’s easier than you think.
Read on to discover how you can achieve serverless printing for your school campuses in five simple steps.
Acknowledge servers as the problem.
Justify the value of going serverless.
Find a solution that checks all your boxes.
Get the CTO and school board on your side.
Start a free 30-day trial.
Acknowledge servers as the problem.
Identifying the problem is critical to solving it. Without giving it a second thought, it’s easy to designate printers as the culprit of your print management woes. They break, they need servicing, consumables are expensive, and you’re always the person called upon when faculty can’t install printers or troubleshoot issues.
But it’s not your printers that are wasting your valuable time and resources. It’s your print servers, and it’s time to start pointing fingers at them. Here are a few reasons why:
Single Point of Failure
Printing comes to a complete halt when a server crashes, resulting in a flood of helpdesk tickets to your inbox just to fix it.
Decentralized Management
More print servers does mean faster print speeds, but it also means more wasted time, money, and resources to ensure each location can print.
Security Vulnerabilities
Still spooked by PrintNightmare? Keeping up with manual patch installs and security updates just to protect your data takes up time and puts too much pressure on IT teams.
Helpdesk Tickets
Failed deployments, slow print speeds, and printer installation requests cause helpdesk calls, which account for up to 50% of IT’s total workload.
These are just scraping the surface of print server drawbacks. However, by eliminating print servers, you would erase all of these worries along with them.
And you wouldn’t be the only one to join the movement.
Companies around the world are taking action. According to Quocirca, 43% of organizations have already moved to a cloud print management platform, with 37% more companies reporting that they have plans to do so in the next two years—making serverless printing the de facto standard moving forward.
Justify the value of going serverless.
You’ve acknowledged print servers as the problem. You don’t want them around anymore.
It’s time to dream a little and imagine life without them. Here are a few things to consider to help you piece together why going serverless is an absolute win for you, your team, and your school.
Money
The cost savings for simply reducing legacy infrastructure immediately impact your annual budget. You’ll no longer have to splurge on management and licensing for print servers. Plus, you avoid the chances of being victimized by server vulnerabilities which lead to costly data breaches. A recent report by IBM estimates that the average cost of a data breach in education was $5.04 million in 2023—$1.26 million more than other industries. Other financial benefits of eliminating print servers include scaling to meet business demands without purchasing additional hardware and increasing printer uptime across school campuses by eliminating the single point of failure.
$4.45m
Average cost of a data breach (globally) in 2023
Source: IBM
$9.48m
Average cost of a data breach (U.S.) in 2023.
Source: IBM
Time
The time saved by going serverless is noticeable from the get-go. No more manual security patch installations, complex deployments, and traveling to other school branches or offsite locations just to address printer issues. You’ll also spend less time responding to helpdesk tickets to fix slow network printing or spooler crashes. Not to mention, you and your team will be able to scale as your school grows by adding new users and printers to your fleet without having to erect another print server.
Resources
Conserving IT resources and maintaining print servers, especially in distributed environments, requires a great deal of labor. When a new location opens, you’re hiring a whole new IT team to make sure other school locations can thrive and users can print when they need to. Going serverless means you’re no longer draining resources or moving people around to meet student and faculty printing needs. Instead, you can manage all your school locations from a single software, helping you save on labor costs and training.
Find a solution that checks all your boxes.
Now that you’ve crafted a list of “whys” for going serverless, it’s time to craft a list of requirements in order to find the right solution. For example, do you need a solution that allows you to reduce consumable costs and track print activity? What about better printing for Chromebooks? Are there security features that you need to maintain compliance?
It’s a lot to ponder. But finding a cloud print management solution that addresses the current and future printing needs of your school is a lot easier if it checks the following boxes:
Centralize Printer and Driver Management
Increase visibility into printer activity by managing all devices across your campus locations, freeing up valuable time for more critical tasks.
Meet Budgeting Needs
Cloud print management should be affordable from the start, give your budget more room to breathe, and bring in a sizeable ROI on consumables, time, and resources.
Optimize Print Security
Minimize attack surfaces by reducing legacy infrastructure, keep print jobs local, and authenticate users before they release print jobs to protect confidential student and faculty data.
Automate Cost Savings
Meet your savings goals by setting print, scan, and copy quotas that automatically reduce wasteful printing practices like unclaimed print jobs in the printer tray or accidental duplicates.
Support Every Device
Utilize all devices and operating systems in your environment without worrying about printer compatibility issues—including Chromebooks, workstations, and mobile devices.
Reduce Helpdesk Tickets
Automate deployments based on user location or empower students and faculty to install printers themselves to improve user productivity and limit calls to the IT helpdesk.
Ask these questions to potential vendors to help you find the perfect match:
Are they 100% serverless?
If you want to reduce costs and streamline print management, the answer better be “yes”.
How long does it take to implement?
It shouldn’t take years or months to get a solution up and running. The best solutions can do it in days—with no interruptions.
What security certifications do they have?
They’re rare, but solutions with both ISO and SOC 2 certifications will meet your security needs.
What do customers say about them?
Ask for collateral and visit G2 to see how they match up against other solutions.
How is their support team?
They should give you 24/7, around-the-clock support—nothing less.
Do they offer special discounts?
Exclusive pricing to meet your budget should be a given. Make sure you get a free trial, too.
Get the CTO and the School Board on your side.
After organizing priorities and determining how going serverless benefits your school, it’s time to put your due diligence to the test by pleading your case to school leaders. You’ve established every angle to build a response to naysayers and get leaders on your side. Here are a few responses to questions you can expect to get from your CTO and school board:
Will going serverless decrease faculty productivity?
No, not at all. After migrating from servers to cloud print management, students and faculty will be able to install printers without calling the IT helpdesk—which also increases IT productivity.
Is serverless printing secure?
Yes. Eliminating print servers minimizes attack surfaces and ensures vulnerabilities like PrintNightmare never happen to us again. Plus, all print jobs stay on the local network and users have to verify their identity before they can print or scan confidential data.
How will eliminating servers save resources?
Eliminating print servers allows a single admin to handle all printer and user requirements from a single console. IT won’t need additional employees to help manage printing and they can spend time tackling other critical initiatives.
Can we find a solution within our budget that also reduces print costs?
Yes. Some serverless print management solutions offer education-specific discounts and pricing to help schools stay within budget AND include sustainable printing features that automate cost savings for us.
50%
of an average school’s waste stream is paper-based
Source: Green Schools Initiative
$200k
is spent on paper per year by schools with 10,000+ students
Source: Frevvo
30%
is lost per year in potential savings from unmanaged print costs
Source: Gartner
Don’t feel like your boss will believe your serverless printing pitch?
Don’t worry. Here’s our useful blog post to help you convince your boss that serverless printing is the best choice.
Start a free 30-day trial with PrinterLogic.
Now that you’ve thrilled your CTO and school board members with your plan to eliminate print
servers and implement cost-saving printing practices, all that’s left is to experience serverless
printing in action—for free, of course.
Implementation is lightning-quick, too. You only need to share three minor details with our experts:
Your unique requirements: Share your needs and concerns with us. Once we understand
what you’re looking for, our team will ensure all your needs are met.
Your school goals: Want to reduce print-related helpdesk tickets by 95%? Trying to implement
better security? We’ll customize our solution to help you get the best outcomes possible.
How many printers you have: Whether you have 10 or 10,000, we’ll move all your printers
away from print servers to our secure SaaS platform.
It really is that simple.
Ready to deliver streamlined print management AND reduce costs for your schools?
Discover how PrinterLogic helps schools like yours accomplish more by eliminating print servers
so you can focus on what matters most.
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