In this White Paper we will examine a dilemma faced by many companies implementing Advanced Print Spooling solutions across multiple geographic locations.
That is, how to deploy the Advanced Print Spooler software across multiple sites in a way that allows them to have the advantages of both a distributed and centralized implementation.
While this customer is in the health care industry, we have seen similar situations across many industries.
For example, this situation can apply to Banking (branches), Retail (stores), Health Care (hospitals), Insurance (offices) and Manufacturing (production facilities).
Company - The customer described in this white paper is a multi-billion dollar, Fortune 100, nationwide health care organization with the following profile:

• Two large data centers (one on west coast and one on east coast of the United States) each running mainframe and UNIX applications
• Multiple regional centers around the United States running UNIX and Windows applications
• Over 5,000 printers, of various types, spread across the sites listed above, printing patient care and other business related documents
• Document volume in the tens of millions of pages per monthBusiness Requirements- Given the size and complexity of this customer environment, managing a reliable and secure print infrastructure was more than the customer could handle without an Advanced Spooling solution.
  Their basic Print Spooler requirements included:
  • High availability and delivery fidelity
  • Print from any location to any printer anywhere in the organization
  • Printer device management tools including automated failure notification
  • Intuitive user interface capable of enterprise wide view and job management tools
  • HIPPA level security
  • Support for multiple O/S's, applications, document format types
  • Local control and centralized control
  • Lowest possible license fees
  • Efficient network bandwidth management
  • Integrate with electronic forms, archiving and other document related softwareWhile assessing the products available in this space, it became apparent to the customer that there were two schools of thought regarding Advanced Spooling software implementation strategy.
    The two strategies are to use a single centralized print server or installing Print Spooler software onto the various distributed application servers.
    Both of these approaches have advantages and disadvantages.
    Centralized Print Server ModelAdvantages:
    • Single point of control and enterprise view of all jobs/queues
    • Fewer printer definitions to maintain
    • Single standard solution
    • Less administrator training
    • Potentially lower software license feesDisadvantages:
      • Loss of autonomy in local sites
      • Implementation requires multiple hops over the network consuming bandwidth and related latency of print times
      • Single point of failure (disaster recovery implications)Distributed Print Server ModelAdvantages:
        • Local control of local jobs and queues
        • Less dependence on centralized support
        • Less network traffic
        • Improved performance
        • Built in redundancyDisadvantages:
          • Loss of centralized control
          • Potentially higher software license fees
          • More printer definitions to maintain
          • Additional training required