CASE STUDY
The City of Cape Town Eliminated 140 Print Servers Using Vasion Print
Cape Town, the capital city of South Africa, utilized Vasion Print to eliminate 140 print servers, streamline printer and driver management, and cut helpdesk costs for more than 20,000 employees.
Project Success and Results
Consolidated 140 Print Servers
The City successfully removed outdated hardware where previous efforts had failed. The cost savings associated with the time and equipment involved in maintaining, updating, and replacing the ageing infrastructure resulted in immediate and much more than anticipated ROI.
Significantly Reduced Helpdesk Calls
Technicians now experience fewer call-outs, and support tickets are resolved much faster. The IT staff has gained the ability to remotely manage the entire print environment from a single Admin Console, eliminating the need for on-site visits and constant support.
Effortless Print Management and Oversight
Printers can be easily deployed individually or en masse with a few clicks. Drivers are conveniently maintained in a single repository, and comprehensive reports on print activity are quickly accessible for auditing purposes.
Additional Results (Beyond Project Goals)
Enhanced Experience for End Users
Users now experience significantly faster login times when switching between workstations. End users can quickly identify and install new printers through the Self-Service Portal without IT support, significantly reducing helpdesk tickets.
Rapid and Easy Deployment
The initial Vasion Print rollout was one of the fastest and most straightforward projects the City of Cape Town has ever carried out. Software installation and folder structure creation took one week. The complete migration of all 140 existing print servers and associated printers to the Vasion Print platform occurred in just two weeks. The solution deployed seamlessly without interruption to end users, IT staff, or day-to-day business operations.
Eliminated Single Points of Failure
Before installing Vasion Print, entire sites could not print for days when print-server failures occurred. End users can now print without interruption, even if a site loses connection to one of the data centres, because Vasion Print’s direct IP printing is not dependent on the management server being accessible via the WAN. This resulted in a drastic increase in productivity and uptime.
“When the need was identified in CCT for better print management, we evaluated options and were able to quickly turn to [Vasion Print] as an easy-to-deploy solution that would effectively meet and exceed their requirements.”
As the global economy shifts, more people than ever are choosing to live in cities where vital resources and quality-of-life amenities tend to be more concentrated and accessible. Cape Town has become an increasingly popular destination to live, work, and visit, making it one of the fastest-growing cities in South Africa in terms of rates of urbanisation.
Located at the southernmost tip of Africa, the City of Cape Town (CCT) is a world-class municipality that strives to provide all its citizens with the services, facilities, governance, and transparency they deserve.
“We want them to feel empowered to make things happen for themselves because they live in Cape Town. We don’t want to be the obstacle to their success; we want to be the facilitator. We want to save them time. And in return, we want them to care, give us feedback, report faults, use our services, and become an active citizen,” says Omeshnee Naidoo, CIO at CCT.
The CCT is a localised but highly distributed organisation that consists of a total of 632 sites spread across Cape Town. Of these sites, only 140 had print servers, leaving hundreds of sites with unmanaged printing. The situation was exacerbated when the CCT removed all remote servers as part of its strategy to consolidate its infrastructure within two data centres. Sites that retained locally managed print servers began to experience hardware failures in older equipment where print servers were not replaced, resulting in more unmanaged sites.
When these servers failed, they sometimes also left entire sites unable to print for days on end. The IT team experienced regular problems with the server at Town Civic Centre, the primary site that houses over 3,000 users. The virtually managed environment further complicated things.
The IT team consulted with Microsoft and several other vendors to assist with the problems they were experiencing ranging from hardware issues to application crashes. However, expiring warranties limited the amount of support they could receive. This meant the relatively lean IT team was investing valuable time in routine print management and infrastructure maintenance, creating a drain on resources that negatively impacted other, more critical projects.
“Within a short period, where print-server hardware began to fall out of warranty, we sought a solution that would give the same management as print servers but would eliminate the risk of downtime of a print server,” Naidoo explains.
“We considered many options, but few could offer the solution we sought. We went out on tender for a product that could meet all our requirements, and [Vasion Print] proved to be the successful bidder with their solution.”
Vasion Print is represented in South Africa by Blue Label Technology Distribution (BLTD), an established value-added distributor to many leading southern African IT channel partners.
Located at the southernmost tip of Africa, the City of Cape Town (CCT) is a world-class municipality that strives to provide all its citizens with the services, facilities, governance, and transparency they deserve.
“We want them to feel empowered to make things happen for themselves because they live in Cape Town. We don’t want to be the obstacle to their success; we want to be the facilitator. We want to save them time. And in return, we want them to care, give us feedback, report faults, use our services, and become an active citizen,” says Omeshnee Naidoo, CIO at CCT.
The CCT is a localised but highly distributed organisation that consists of a total of 632 sites spread across Cape Town. Of these sites, only 140 had print servers, leaving hundreds of sites with unmanaged printing. The situation was exacerbated when the CCT removed all remote servers as part of its strategy to consolidate its infrastructure within two data centres. Sites that retained locally managed print servers began to experience hardware failures in older equipment where print servers were not replaced, resulting in more unmanaged sites.
When these servers failed, they sometimes also left entire sites unable to print for days on end. The IT team experienced regular problems with the server at Town Civic Centre, the primary site that houses over 3,000 users. The virtually managed environment further complicated things.
The IT team consulted with Microsoft and several other vendors to assist with the problems they were experiencing ranging from hardware issues to application crashes. However, expiring warranties limited the amount of support they could receive. This meant the relatively lean IT team was investing valuable time in routine print management and infrastructure maintenance, creating a drain on resources that negatively impacted other, more critical projects.
“Within a short period, where print-server hardware began to fall out of warranty, we sought a solution that would give the same management as print servers but would eliminate the risk of downtime of a print server,” Naidoo explains.
“We considered many options, but few could offer the solution we sought. We went out on tender for a product that could meet all our requirements, and [Vasion Print] proved to be the successful bidder with their solution.”
Vasion Print is represented in South Africa by Blue Label Technology Distribution (BLTD), an established value-added distributor to many leading southern African IT channel partners.