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General Information
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June 22, 2007
• Vol.29 Issue 25
Page(s) 5 in print issue
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Cut Costs By Effectively Managing Your Printers
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A lot of attention is given to asset management and usage monitoring when it comes to computers and network equipment, but there is another area altogether that accounts for a surprising amount of expenses in the SME: printers. The amount of investment in printer assets can rival telecommunications infrastructure and other high-profile hardware expenditures, yet the administration of these resources is often not given much thought after implementation. Research by Gartner indicates that as much as a 30% reduction of printing costs can be achieved in a few years by implementing improved management practices. Here are a few tips on how to streamline your printing operations and cut costs by effectively managing your printers.
 Utilize IPP For Microsoft Windows Server 2003
The IPP (Internet Printing Protocol) 1.0 specification makes provisions for printing remotely over HTTP and creating a means of remote management over the Web for your Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Print Servers (www.microsoft.com). Microsoft has published a technical resource on IPP, which is available for download at www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/techinfo/overview/internetprint.mspx.
This document describes in detail how to enable these functions. As an added tip to increase performance of your Windows Print Server, it is recommended that you change the location of the spooler to a different physical hard drive than what the main OS files use. This eliminates resource contention between the Windows System files and the print spooler. Remember that merely using a different partition on the same hard drive will not accomplish the same result—you will need at least two hard drives in your server to implement this tip. For a large organization with a high number of printers and a very active spool, you can also use a RAID array for the spooler to handle the load.
The software to use IPP comes with the Windows Server 2003 Operating System software off the shelf and is a handy tool for increasing the reach and capabilities of your Windows Print Server.
Identify Your Inventory Of Local & Networked Printers
Sometimes the right tool for the job is a third-party software product that will detect, monitor, and manage your printer assets. Printelligence Enterprise v3.0 by Preo Software (www.preosoftware.com) fills the bill and has additional capabilities to boot. It is easy to deploy and contains useful features, such as rules-based print management, meta-rules, and rules-based analytics, to help IT staff stay on top of printer activity. The software is also exceptionally robust, due to its decoupled architecture. This means print jobs don’t have to go through any one particular print server, eliminating single points of failure. Its biggest claim to fame when it comes to identifying inventory, however, is its auto-discovery of printing devices and servers. After all, you can’t manage what you can’t see.
Use The Right Size & Type Of Printer For Your Organization’s Needs
Having the right tool for the job is also important in managing the costs associated with your enterprise’s print devices. Brian Anderson, vice president of sales and marketing at Netaphor Software (www.netaphor.com), says the company’s Site-Audit product can address this crucial requirement. “SiteAudit is the only solution I know of that provides utilization analytics and print volume tracking in terms of trend analysis, lifetime printer counts, fax, scan, color, monochrome, copy, and email tracking,” he says. “By providing an analysis of utilization and different counts, customers can decide on the most cost-efficient printer deployment.” This gives IT personnel the ability to prevent overspending and procuring too much capacity for their organizations’ needs.
Estimate Your Costs To See Where Improvements Are Needed
HP (www.hp.com), a leading authority on printer management, has developed the HP Printing And Imaging Assessment Tool. The cost estimation tool can be accessed free online at h30194.www3.hp.com/index.aspx ?topiccode=entipg.
To address the plethora of issues that may be brought to light by the cost estimator tool, HP offers what it calls TPM (Total Print Management). The HP Web site describes TPM as its “integrated, scalable solution of intelligent network devices, software, supplies, and services that optimizes and proactively manages the entire imaging and printing infrastructure to reduce costs by up to 30%, while improving productivity and asset utilization.” For example, HP suggests that an enterprise may benefit from TPM if its printer-related help desk calls are more than 15% of the total volume. 
by David Gilbert
Best Return On Investment: Keep An Eye On The Cost Of Printing Supplies
Pharos Systems (www.pharos.com), a company with more than 13 years of experience, published a thoroughly researched whitepaper that covers topics such as cost management and cost recovery for print devices in the enterprise. This paper contains a great deal of information that should prove to be valuable to IT managers, and one of the main tips is to consider the cost of printing supplies when calculating TCO for your printer assets. The results of Pharos Systems’ research demonstrate that expensive-to-run desktop inkjet printers and nonstandardized equipment can drain the supply budget by needing frequent cartridge changes and requiring a wide range of cartridge types on hand to feed demand. Pharos recommends avoiding this variation of overcapacity by not purchasing low-cost individual desktop printers in large numbers because the cost of supplying them and supporting them rises quickly. |
Easiest To Implement: Select The Best Printer Drivers For Your Microsoft Windows 2003 Print Server
If you are using the Print Server functions integrated with the Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Operating System, you can get more out of your setup by choosing the right drivers for your particular application. According to Microsoft (www.microsoft.com), “the printer drivers that you select to run on your Windows 2003 print server can have a great impact on its performance, reliability, and scalability.” By using drivers that make your system happy, you will have fewer crashes. This frees up IT staff by reducing printer-related service calls. In general, you should stick with user-mode drivers, Post-Script drivers, Unidrv-based drivers, and drivers with the Designed for Windows logo (aka signed drivers). You should avoid kernel-mode drivers, monolithic drivers (neither Unidrv-based nor PostScript driver), and unsigned drivers. |
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