SaaS or Virtual Appliance: Which PrinterLogic Solution Is the Best Fit for Your Organization?

With the exciting release of our Virtual Appliance, you might be asking yourself which PrinterLogic solution is right for you. Would your organization’s print management benefit most from our cloud solution, PrinterLogic SaaS, or our next-gen hypervisor solution, the PrinterLogic Virtual Appliance?

To answer that question, it helps to understand the key differences between the two. That’s what we’ll lay out here.

But before we begin, it’s worth mentioning that PrinterLogic Virtual Appliance and PrinterLogic SaaS have a lot of overlap. They’re both built on a common foundation of centrally managed, direct-IP printing. So each PrinterLogic solution brings secure print functionality, ultra-efficient print management and modern serverless printing to your workplace.

Furthermore, both PrinterLogic SaaS and the PrinterLogic Virtual Appliance share features like:

• Self-service printer installation: End users can easily identify and install nearby printers with a single click.

• Print server elimination: Serverless printing lets you get rid of cumbersome, expensive legacy infrastructure.

• Seamless VDI integration: Enhance your VDI solution’s native print capabilities for reliable printing and effortless print management.

• Intuitive mobile printing: Enable native printing from iOS and Android devices while making printing safe and convenient for guests or BYOD users.

Where the two print-management solutions part ways mostly has to do with your preferred implementation. That plays out in three key areas.

PrinterLogic SaaS is an official Amazon Web Services (AWS) well-architected solution. It’s hosted across several geographic public cloud regions. Unlike some hybrid solutions, no additional servers have to be hosted in your private cloud or datacenter. Because PrinterLogic SaaS is a true SaaS solution and adheres to strict AWS security criteria, IT admins don’t have direct access to the database that houses information about the instance.

By contrast, the PrinterLogic Virtual Appliance gives IT admins direct access to their VA instance database and related information. That’s because it’s a self-contained, preconfigured VM image self-hosted on your hypervisor—which can be in an on-prem data center, a private cloud data center or a public cloud data center.

Many managed service providers (MSPs) support their customers’ print environments with PrinterLogic’s print management software. For the sake of visibility and efficiency, they prefer to manage those multiple print environments using a single management console. PrinterLogic SaaS is built on a scalable AWS platform that enables this kind of convenient multi-tenancy arrangement.

The PrinterLogic Virtual Appliance is better suited for enterprise customers who just need a single instance of our print management software. As with every PrinterLogic solution, they can manage their entire print environment from a single pane of glass.

Like many true SaaS offerings, PrinterLogic SaaS uses a continuous-delivery update methodology. This takes place quietly in the background. As new features and fixes become available, they’re automatically delivered to SaaS instances.

The PrinterLogic Virtual Appliance can be updated in one of two ways. One is a full-replacement update. This involves detaching the persistent storage disk and replacing the virtual appliance with the updated PrinterLogic version. The second is a partial update. Using this method, admins can cherry pick the updates they want or need.

Generally speaking, many SMBs and MSPs find PrinterLogic SaaS to be a good fit. They value its multi-tenancy feature and its automatic updates, and they don’t need access to the software database itself.

The PrinterLogic Virtual Appliance is designed primarily—but not exclusively—for our enterprise customers who want total control over every aspect. They want to determine the who, what, when, where and how of the hosting location, the database and the update process. And they prefer separate PrinterLogic instances to multi-tenancy.

Whichever option you choose, PrinterLogic converts legacy print environments into highly available, centrally managed direct-IP printing platforms. You’ll enjoy secure print features, streamlined print management and a future-proof printing strategy that can save your organization time and money.