Cirrato With Remote Desktops
Managing drivers, mapping and locating printers, and reducing network traffic with remote desktop connections -- such as Citrix / Terminal Services or VDI / Thin Client infrastructures -- is easy with Cirrato.
With most large organizations using remote desktop connections such as Citrix or Terminal Services for critical business applications and VDI to connect desktops to remote servers, it is important that users can always print without hassle.
Unfortunately, new printing problems are introduced in such remote connection topographies. Issues include driver mapping, locating printers and the increased print traffic that passes through the remote connection.
Cirrato Single Server Printing excels in such environments and has elegant solutions for each of these problems.
Citrix or Terminal Services Printer Mapping
When connecting to a remote desktop session such as Citrix or Terminal Services, local printers must be correctly mapped so you can print to them. In order for this to work, the remote session server and your local desktop need identical drivers.
With hundreds or thousands of clients - our largest customer has 100,000 clients - and many servers, this is an accident waiting to happen. Typically, locally updated drivers are not reflected on the servers and users are not able to see their printers. The result, often, is a call to IT support.
Cirrato's driver management provides full control at all time over installed drivers on clients. When a user installs a new printer, Cirrato monitors that only supported drivers are used.
Removing Print Servers
In a Citrix Remote Desktop environment, print jobs are often sent from the Citrix server to the client, then from the client to a print server for spooling and finally from the print server to the printer. The job passes the WAN network three times. Both printing and other network services suffer.
Because Cirrato spools jobs locally, there is no need for print servers even in a Citrix Remote Desktop environment. The job is sent from the Citrix server to the Cirrato client on the desktop and then directly to the printer. This dramatically speeds up printing, removes network traffic and enables considerable server consolidation.
Pull Print in Thin Client Environments
When you connect to a VDI session through a thin client, you will typically not see your 'own' configurations and printers. How do you easily find and print to the printer right next to you? Cirrato's Pull Print functionality solves the problem elegantly.
With Cirrato One embedded Print users easily locate and print to any nearby printer, even in a remote desktop session without printer mapping. Here is how it works:
- Click print
- A list of nearby printers is presented
- Choose printer (Cirrato automatically installs the necessary driver)
- Apply job settings and confirm
- The job is sent to the selected printer
There is no need for authentication terminals at the printer, no need for PIN codes, and most importantly, no need to call IT support. Wherever you are, whichever session you connect to, you simply print.
Best of all, there is only one Cirrato server in the organization and no print servers, and all Cirrato's functions are available wherever you are.
Of course "normal" Pull Print is also available if you would rather authenticate directly at the printer using proximity/swipe card or PIN codes.
Print Job Compression
In remote host environments, print jobs travel from the host to the printer over the network. This creates considerable network traffic, which slows down printing and other network services.
With the Cirrato client installed on the remote host server, the job is compressed and sent to a Cirrato client close to the physical printer. The job is decompressed at the client and sent to the printer.
The decompression point can be either yours or any other desktop in the office defined as such. Cirrato's compression function is also useful when using "Global Pull Print" – a service that enables printing in one office, and authenticating and collecting the job somewhere else.