A dedicated print server used to be the sole way to control printing. Then “serverless” print management was made possible with the advent of cloud computing.
But if you’re there debating between print servers and serverless, and which might be better? Looking at it the wrong way. It’s not about one being better than the other, they both have their cons. It’s more about “Which printing solution suits my IT stack?”
There are lots of different models for “serverless” print management. It can be self-hosted by your organization in a private cloud. Or it can be fully hosted in the public cloud under a SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) subscription.
Furthermore, some “on-premises” print management solutions can be hosted in the cloud. You choose the location of the print server where the software is hosted. Then you access it via the cloud, rather than you owning and maintaining the print server yourself.
- What is serverless printing?
You don’t have a physical print server on-premises. Instead, you’re outsourcing the role of a print server to a cloud service provider.
- What is print server printing?
Managing your print infrastructure has traditionally been the role of a print server, just another piece of hardware that forms your overall technology stack including server racks, etc.
- Self-hosted or fully-hosted cloud print management
A self-hosted or private-hosted single-tenant version of “on-premise” print management offers the benefits of “serverless printing” while also giving companies the performance, control, and security advantages of a print server.
Our flagship print management solution PaperCut MF is perfectly suited to private cloud deployments as a single-tenant print solution. You decide where your server is hosted for the cloud and you have full control over data, backups, location, and update cycles.
PaperCut Hive and PaperCut Pocket, two of our completely hosted cloud products, were designed from the ground up for public clouds. We host the print solutions, which are completely serverless and don’t need any upkeep. With IoT-inspired technologies, the Edge Mesh architecture offers the best of both worlds. PaperCut Hive is our feature-rich, flagship cloud print solution with MFP embedded software. You can track and manage printing, copying, and scanning, and enable secure print release with the mobile app, an ID card, or device touchscreen.
Our DIY public cloud printing solution is called PaperCut Pocket. With secure print release at your printer using the mobile device app, set it up yourself to track and manage printing.
Are PaperCut’s cloud solutions any good though?
We don’t want to just point out the negatives but merely to draw attention to the fact that serverless printing is not always the preferable option to print servers. It depends on your preferences and the infrastructure of your organization.
Explore if PaperCut MF hosted in the cloud or if our fully-hosted cloud solutions PaperCut Hive or PaperCut Pocket suit your business, please contact us or send us an e-mail to Sales@ecoprintQ.com.
SOURCE ecoprintQ
