Thin client printing problems are almost too numerous to list in a single blog post, but fortunately there are thin client printing solutions—PrinterLogic being chief among them—that can help in just about every case.
Thin client computing is built on an architecture that poses fundamental problems to printing. Because the client requires an unbroken connection to the server, printing functionality is jeopardized whenever that connection is lost or strained. That puts a lot of pressure on maintaining WAN links in distributed environments. To ensure uninterrupted productivity for session users, especially with regard to enterprise printing, many organizations have fallback WAN solutions in place to provide the redundancy that leads to system-wide resilience.
Yet remote thin clients also exert considerable stress on those WAN links simply through ordinary use, seeing as how those links are vital data conduits for every client session. In fact, in some thin client printing situations, print job information has to travel over the WAN multiple times. Each time the print job crosses the WAN it consumes considerable bandwidth—and it’s a lot more than you think.
That’s because print jobs grow in size when they are rendered for printing. Sometimes exponentially. As those rendered print jobs return across the WAN, their file size creates traffic that has the potential to grind network performance to a halt. And in a thin client environment, this increased network traffic naturally ends up affecting everything, including basic desktop services. The primary thin client printing solution to alleviate this problem is print job compression. By compressing print jobs, the file size will be reduced and consequently so will the burden on the WAN connection.
Poor driver management is another factor that can cause more than just thin client printing problems. Driver conflicts are notorious for adversely affecting the stability of the entire environment; they can frequently be temperamental or even wholly incompatible in certain thin environments. But with PrinterLogic as your thin client printing solution, driver management is a breeze. It’s possible to administer drivers—as well as printers—across the enterprise from a single pane of glass and ensure that the right drivers get to the right users every time. You can even set up to print through a universal driver by default for maximum compatibility.
Last but certainly not least among thin client printing problems is the complexity of printer deployment and installation. When relying on complex group policy objects (GPOs) and scripts, it’s tough to ensure that printers are consistently and precisely deployed to the right users. And the thought of end-users installing local network printers themselves is probably enough to strike fear in the most seasoned IT professionals. However, PrinterLogic enables you to deploy printers in a targeted, reliable way without the need for GPOs. It also provides end-users with an intuitive self-service portal through which they can easily install printers by themselves—even in tricky thin environments.
While it’s true that thin client printing problems do exist, don’t lose hope—just turn to PrinterLogic. Our print management solution can be seamlessly deployed in any enterprise thin client environment, no matter how distributed, in order to gain flexible, reliable, straightforward, bandwidth-optimized printing that empowers end-users while minimizing the burden on IT.