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

Thanks Rick. Appreciate your detailed reply as per usual..

Angela

Date: Fri, 20 Jun 2008 13:27:17 -0400
From: ulrich.mack@xxxxxxxxx
To: thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [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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Provision Networks Division 

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