[THIN] Re: Print Server / Citrix design question - urgent

Hi Angela,

A centralized approach is a lot better from a manageability viewpoint.
However if you don't have a true UPD solution with compression enabled
between head office and the branches a decentralized print server approach
with the Citrix UPD is an acceptable alternative.
You CAN control ICA client printer bandwidth, but that will throttle
printing regardless of the amount of bandwidth available on a WAN link.

Having a highly compressed print stream outside ICA let's you manage
printing bandwidth with QOS. If people are busy, printing will be slow, but
if there's bandwidth available, it'll be brilliant.

 Since TS/Citrix would still be printing via ICA client UPD the printer
drivers you use in the branch offices are irrelevant.

But you've really you've got to consider the cost of managing the increased
complexity and that you've got no easy visibility of all the printers and
queues, as opposed to what a centralized print server/UPD solution would
have. If  the thin client machines can do TCP/IP printing directly to a
printer, using direct printing to printers at each branch would be the least
expensive hardware/software solution but then you're managing printer
drivers on all the client machines.

There's no easy answer because regardless of the UPD product you use, to get
real benefits (absolutely optimal WAN payload) you need a win32 "receiver"
at the other end. As an example with Thinprint, there is an often huge
difference between the WAN payload you see printing to win32 as opposed to
an embedded thinprint client device. That gets us back to a print server of
some sort at each branch.

A centralized UPD approach is best from a management, printing bandwidth
control and efficiency viewpoint, but it's also the most expensive to buy.
Nevertheless you'd be doing yourself and your company a disservice not to
recognize that management costs money as well, and that a centralized
approach has the lowest management overhead.

regards,

Rick

Ulrich Mack
Quest Software
Provision Networks Division

On Fri, Jun 20, 2008 at 7:38 AM, Angela Smith <angela_smith9@xxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

>
> Hi RickI was looking at using desktop class hardware but Im concerned about
> manageability.  Eg if it bluescreens or looses LAN connectivity.  I like the
> idea of having a ILO (HP Servers) as we have many sites around the country.
>  I was looking at HP ML Class hardware and would be happy to go down this
> path.  I just dont want to deploy 30 Print Servers to our branch offices
> only to find out its better to use a centralised Print Server..Would I be
> correct in saying I need to use indirect Printing if the Print Server is in
> each office?  Can I not control Printer bandwidth using Universal driver in
> indirect mode?I will look into Print-IT - thanks..Would third party drivers
> make my life easier if we had local Print servers in each office?  We tried
> this a while back but had many spooler crashes with HP drivers hence our
> reason to go universal...ThanksDate: Fri, 20 Jun 2008 07:05:04 -0400From:
> ulrich.mack@xxxxxxxxxxx: thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx: [THIN] Re: Print
> Server / Citrix design question - urgentHi Angela,
>
> You aren't going to have an ideal scenario with a pure Citrix solution at
> this point in time.
>
> However you'll get the smallest WAN printing payload (and quickest
> printing) if you make sure that each site has it's own print server. That
> way you can use UPD only with no additional SMB-based printing traffic.
> AOpen have a very small PC that's almost identical to a Mac Mini (but black)
> that makes an excellent unobtrusive print server for remote offices.
>
>
>
> The one downside to that appraoch is that one person's print job can starve
> everyone else on that site of WAN bandwidth. That's why a UPD solution that
> let's you print efficiently outside a Citrix session is so much more
> valuable.
>
>
> Having a centralized print server is better from the viewpoint of
> controlling printing bandwidth utilization outside the ICA channel, but if
> it's not at all ideal in terms of WAN printing payload unless you use a
> third party UPD solution.
>
>
> Incidentally Provision Network's Print-IT is an excellent solution UPD
> solution that's quite as good as Thinprint and not nearly as expensive.
>
> regards,
>
> Rick
>
>
> -- Ulrich MackQuest SoftwareProvision Networks Division
> On Fri, Jun 20, 2008 at 6:30 AM, Angela Smith <angela_smith9@xxxxxxxxxxx>
> wrote:
>
> HiIm looking at making changes to our existing farm as Printing is not
> currently setup optimally.  We run Windows 2003 Presentation Server 4 farm
> with a centralised MS Windos 2003 Print Server.  The Citrix farm and MS
> Print Server are on the same network.  All our clients are across the WAN on
> 1Mb frame relay links.  We have several sites that are 100% Citrix with
> Windows XP clients that are setup with client network printers which are
> autocreated in Citrix.  We use Citrix universal drivers only (No third party
> HP drivers used).
> Now my question is....  Am I better to use a centralised MS Print Server or
> should I have a Print Server in each office?  I want to minimise the amount
> of traffic on the WAN as the links are small and often get saturated.  Ive
> read numerous documents and am confused now in relation to the best way to
> setup printing.  I want to minimise WAN traversal as much as possible and I
> don't want documents spooling over the WAN.  PDF documents can be very big
> and a 100MB spooled job will take hours to print over a 1MB link.
> What do you suggest?  Should I be using Indirect Printing?  Should each
> site have a MS Print Server? By the way, we do not have budget for THinPrint
> or ScrewDrivers so I need to make do with Citrix functionality.  Please help
> as I am out of ideas and am close to removing Citrix all together...
> ThanksAngela
>
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-- 
Ulrich Mack
Quest Software
Provision Networks Division

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