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Home > Archive > Security+ > August 2003 > Could someone here clear up what exact a print server is?
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Could someone here clear up what exact a print server is?
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| syphon00 2003-08-26, 3:53 pm |
| my concept of a print server is a
printer that has a significant amount of onboard RAM and can had spools without being attached to a PC
so at the office
I have a HP Laser 4100 with an
Jetdirect Print Server attached to it
which is pretty much an ethernet interface
card. I believe the printer has 64MB on board memory.
so the way it's configured now,
the printer is being shared off of the W2K server, does this mean it's not acting as
a print server?
and today I just figured out that on win XP
you could actually add the printer as a TCP/IP port which allows you to connect to it direct via IP, does this make it a print server?
by directly connecting to the printer it's no longer effected by the state the server is in, because I can shut down the server and people can still print to it
lastly if anyone here's messed with Web Jetadmin before, I'm having trouble setting up a print queue
Thanks for any suggestions | |
| azimuth40 2003-08-26, 4:43 pm |
| It has to do with size and capabilities. Look at it the same way that you would look at routers. You can buy a router for the home for $75 but it in no way compares to a $3000 Cisco router.
A print server can just basically serve the printer to the cable, ethernet, token ring, multi-parallel to single parallel with some extra buffering RAM. Your jet direct is in this catagory but it takes no load off of the Local Area Network because all systems must poll for availability of that 64MB buffer. A single page jpeg can easily exceed that.
The advanced print server captures entire files to disk storage at the speed of the network and then feeds them to one or many printers based on software controlled parameters. The original client system has not further involvement in the process and generally does not know about things like out of paper, off line, toner needed etc.
This type of server is a dedicated computer as in a PC loaded with something like Novell Netware or a computer printer appliance with hard disk and dedicated print server software. This type of printer server often handles advanced things like protocol conversion i.e. postscript to inkjet or plotter, file reformatting, security issues, watermarks, delayed printing etc.
Some of the very high end HP laserjets allow the inclusion of a hard disk in the printer and a separate printer appliance computer which unfortunately HP still calls jet direct. You could buy another printer for what HP charges for those options.
With your low end jetdirect you often have a dedicated printer server talking to a jet direct printer server in a large company.
One of your other questions about IP simply makes the printer a host on your network which also can allow remote printing. Printers used to have serial ports hooked to external modems to do the same thing. The direct in jet direct is more appropriate and in no need to directly hook it to a computer or printer switch box. | |
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| Pretty good reply Azimuth40 
syphon00 - I would also mention that I have a print server attached to my Canon 520 - it is about the size of a cigarette packet and does what is required for a small office. | |
| jdmurray 2003-08-26, 11:08 pm |
| quote:
I would also mention that I have a print server attached to my Canon 520 - it is about the size of a cigarette packet and does what is required for a small office.
Yes, these little devices are technically media converters because they adapt a serial, parallel, or USB printer to reside on an Ethernet, Novell, or AppleTalk network.
The marketing-types must have decided that printer transceiver was too confusing, and printer network adapters wasn't sexy enough, so they pulled print server out of their you-know-whats and created yet-another-overloaded-computer-term. | |
| syphon00 2003-08-27, 8:23 am |
| great tips guys!, especially azimuth40
so my last question would be
in my situation should I connect all the users in the office directly to the printer
via IP or share it off the win2k server? | |
| jdmurray 2003-08-27, 9:46 am |
| Placing a printer directly on a network as a host is a quick, inexpensive, and easy thing to do for a small office network. Using a W2K server as a printer server is only necessary for larger networks where you have many people queuing-up print jobs at the same time. A printer server also allows you greater control over printer security and availabilty. And for offices that really use their printers a lot, printer pooling is a great feature to use.
If you go the directly-on-the-network route, then I suggest you buy a printer that is specifically designed to be attached to a network. If you buy, say, a USB printer that you must connect to your TCP/IP network using a print server box, the software that comes with the printer won't understand this type of connection, and some features of the printer may not be available to you.
As an example, we bought (real cheap) an HP V series 4-in-1 (printer, scanner, fax, copier) that was USB. We hooked it on to our office LAN using a $50 print server box and loaded the HP software on to our computers. Well, we could print to the HP like it was any other network printer. But because the HP software didn't understand communicating with the printer via an IP address, we couldn't use the special features of the sofware, like sending faxes from our workstations.
Make sure you know what you want to do with your printer before you spend your $200 on a really great deal. |
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