Encom Consulting Corporation

Overview

With the advent of Microsoft’s Active Directory and newer operating systems such as Windows 2000 and Windows XP, remote management of the desktop environment is becoming a reality. The combination of these technologies will allow network administrators to support the user environment via software solutions as opposed to dispatching a technician to assist the user with certain tasks.

Common Problems

Managing printers is one of the most troublesome issues that a network administrator faces. Whether it be adding or removing a printer from the network or adding or moving users around the network, printer drivers and settings must be adjusted for each user. On a large network or a network where users move around frequently this can be a major burden on the IS support staff. Mobile users are affected by printing issues most often. When users travel between company locations, printers must be searched for, information collected about the printer, drivers are installed and finally the user is able to print. Only for this to happen again at the next stop.

Server migrations and maintenance are also an issue. Any time a print server fails or is taken out of service, the users print environment must be reconfigured to reflect the changes.

Active Print

Active Print provides IT staff with a central tool to configure and store the print environment for the user community. Using Active Print management, administrators can assign printers directly to a user or to an Active Directory group. Enabling a group for printer assignment allows all members of that group to receive the printer mapping on their desktop with no intervention from the user or IT personnel.

User Environment Monitoring

In addition to centralized printer management, Active Print monitors the users environment. Utilizing the Active Print user agent via a logon script, the user environment is evaluated each time the users logs onto the network. Active Print compares the users current configuration with the configuration that is stored in Active Directory. If a printer has been added or removed from the network, that change will be reflected in the users environment. Conversely, if the user inadvertently removes a printer, Active Print will reinstall it making sure the print environment is preserved.

Printers Based on Site

Active Print leverages Active Directory ‘Sites’. Sites are normally physical locations such as a company building or office location. Site information is used to determine where the user is in the enterprise and what printers should be installed on their PC. This is a great value when users travel between company locations.

Active Print In Action

Below are several scenarios that will be used to demonstrate the power of Active Print.

The Accounting Group

The network administrator has configured a security group that contains all accounting users. The Accounting security group is used to assign permissions to resources such as a network share point. Now, with Active Print printers can be assigned to the accounting group as well. As shown in the Active Print window below it is no longer necessary to rely on short and sometimes cryptic share names for printers. Active Print displays the Location information contained in Active Directory making printer identification easy.

The West Coast Sales team

The West Coast Sales Team is employed by a company that has four locations in California. While on the road team members will visit the closest company office to perform various tasks. When they logon to the network and activate Active Print they are connected to a local printers no matter which location they reside in.

Individual User

Printers can be assigned to individual users as well. This enables the network administrator to customize the printing environment and handle special configuration issues. Note that users can be members of printer enabled groups and have specific printers assigned to them as well.

With the ability to assign printers to users and groups via an easy to use interface, Active Print enables the administrator to stream line and reduce printer management costs.

Cost: $7.50 Per User