P2P

54 P E E R T O P E E R : I L T A ' S Q U A R T E R L Y M A G A Z I N E | W I N T E R 2 0 2 3 Multiple Print Servers Gartner estimates that the average cost of a print server is between $2,000 and $5,000 per year. This includes the hardware, storage, licensing, cooling, power, physical security, management, maintenance, upgrades, virus scanning, and so on. Relying on a single server, especially in a larger office, leaves a single point of failure and can also lead to poor user experience as printing slows down if the print server is not sized appropriately. Most firms spread their print queues across multiple servers or have a redundant print server to mitigate these issues. Servers require regular patching, and downtime needs to be scheduled for out-of-hours maintenance windows. A bad print driver can sometimes cause server spooler crashes and hangs, which require Windows spooler service restarts to rectify. Any outages can cause major disruptions to knowledge workers, and in an environment where time is billed, outages can be costly. Many Queues Firms will deploy at least one shared queue per device, but if they have standby print servers, they may have duplicate queues. They may also have multiple queues pointing to the same device and want different users to have different default settings or access to other finishing options (for instance, the ability to use the booklet finisher). There are probably old queues on their print servers that should have been deleted long ago, and maybe a few test queues sitting out there on their network that nobody should be using. Multiple Drivers If a firm has more than one printer manufacturer, they will probably need to manage multiple drivers. These might be a mixture of PCL and PostScript drivers because certain users (especially in Real Estate practice groups) print large PDF plans that print more accurately, faster, and in better quality when printed using PostScript. They may even have multiple versions of the same driver (i.e. a manufacturer's global or universal driver) on their network if print queues were set up at different times as devices were replaced with newer models. Print Drivers can sometimes be affected by vulnerabilities and can be an attack vector on your network. In July 2021, a report revealed that millions of computers dating back to 2005 contain a print driver that introduces a dangerous vulnerability, which cyberattacks could use to escalate system access privileges (https:// w w w. secur ity week.com/millions- dev ices-affected- v u lnerability-hp -sa msu ng-xerox-pr inter- d r ivers/ ). Keeping drivers up to date and managing updates on print queues can be time-consuming and is not a priority for most IT departments. F E A T U R E S "Print Drivers can sometimes be affected by vulnerabilities and can be an attack vector on your network."

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