Remote Printing

Every day, organizations of all sizes need to securely print from one location, such as a main headquarters, to another remote office location that isn’t on the same network or even in the same country. Remote printing is the solution. A remote printing solution works by enabling secure print data delivery and release between multiple networks over the Internet to the intended recipient. The sender connects to printing software on the originating network and is able to securely print to the receiving network printers, even though the originating and receiving networks are not connected, except by the Internet.

The market drivers for remote printing solutions are ultimately related to the need for businesses to simultaneously increase sales and profits, increase customer service, and reduce costs. The Internet has obviously been the biggest enabler to accomplish this. That produced enablers such as mobile and business “cloud” services that today underpin most every business process transformation to achieve this.

Remote printing extends the reach of mobile devices and laptops making it easy to print to off-network printers anywhere in the world

Remote printing solutions have emerged because of these emerging business trends. Each helps to drive increases in sales and profits and reduce costs.

On-premise business apps moving to third-party cloud service providers.
Real-time information exchange between customers and suppliers displacing batch exchange of the same information.
Increases in the “virtual workforce” at the expense of “on-premise” workers.

What are some benefits of secure remote printing software?

Reduction or elimination of VPN costs

Remote printing solutions reduce the need for dedicated VPN connections in many workflows where off-network printing is desired, but remote printers must connect to the trusted network via secure connection in order to print.

Enhanced security

A remote printing solution can meet virtually any secure print requirement of any organization by virtue of control of user authentication, print job data encryption, transmission encryption and secure release methods at the print device.

Seamless user experience

The final benefit is the elimination of much of the user training typically required for deploying new technology like this. The remote printing platform can be integrated directly into a user’s standard workflows. The user prints as they always do using the existing method(s). Printing to a remote printer is the same experience as printing to a network printer down the hall at the office.

Types of remote printing

Printing orders or shipping documents from an ERP system to third-party locations

A product manufacturer receives an order for products which must be fulfilled with product stored at a third party location, such as a contract warehouse. The contract warehouse has no dedicated secure connection to the manufacturer but the manufacturer needs to print customer order product pick tickets and shipping documentation directly to printers at the third-party warehouse. This need is independent of the order management or ERP system the manufacturer is using.

Printing from ERP or other on-premise systems moved to a third-party cloud

A business who uses an on-premise commercial ERP system or a custom-built system for running business functions like order management, inventory, CRM, accounting, or other functions has decided to move those systems to a third-party cloud provider in order reduce the complexity of their internal IT and reduce cost. Many of those applications still need to print documents to printers behind the company firewall as part of the business process.

Trusted network printing using virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) technology

In order to simplify the application infrastructure and reduce software and support costs for both desktop and mobile, many companies have implemented Virtual Desktop Infrastructure technology from a provider such as Citrix. Some of the business processes run on applications through the VDI infrastructure have printing requirements. The VDI infrastructure does not have robust capability to print to the organization’s printers.

Corporate office/home office (COHO) printing

Financial services sales agent is working from their home office and is preparing for a client meeting. They must print out supporting documentation for the meeting. The home office printer must be able to print the documents from any authorized system just as if the agent were in the central office, meeting the same security and tracking requirements.

Hospital printing to doctor’s office

A hospital staff worker needs to securely print orders, test results, or some other type of medical records to a doctor’s office. This need is independent of the business application at the hospital that is used to print. The doctor’s office is independent of the hospital and not connected to its secure network.