How to Streamline IT Operations with Serverless Printing

COVID-19 didn’t start the revolution of distributed work and decentralized teams, but it did hasten its progression. In the post-pandemic world, remote work and highly digitized workflows are the norm, and that means efficiency is crucial to continued success.

IT managers have two important tasks when looking at upgrading systems. One is streamlining tasks for employees and for IT personnel. The other is improving security. The latter is especially critical for distributed teams because remote workflows introduce a whole new world of potential vulnerabilities.

With these goals in mind, moving to serverless printing is way to modernize and simplify IT operations.

What Is Serverless Printing?

Serverless printing is just that—printing that happens without traditional print servers, typically enabled by the cloud. Traditional on-premises print infrastructure relies on print servers to solve several problems in larger environments, including managing requests from many print users and the ongoing hassle of managing and updating print drivers on individual computers.

Print servers offer centralized print management and better control but are still inefficient and expensive to manage. Plus, print servers can pose a security risk.

Serverless printing provides a best-of-both-worlds solution, taking all the advantages of on-premises print servers to the next level while eliminating the disadvantages.

Read about Pharos Direct Print – serverless print workflows.

Serverless Printing Advantages

Well-designed cloud-based print management platforms provide a number of advantages over traditional print environments with print servers.

Eliminate Expensive Hardware

Print server hardware is expensive to buy and maintain. Serverless platforms eliminate the need for print servers and the ongoing maintenance they require.

Eliminate Driver Management

Managing print servers and print queues puts avoidable strain on IT personnel. Print driver management is one of the most onerous and time-consuming tasks for IT, and well-designed platforms make this unnecessary by eliminating vendor print driver management altogether.

Enhance Security

Print servers have proven vulnerable to attack and have become a major target for hackers to gain access to sensitive company resources. Recent breaches have made news, the infamous PrintNightmare being most prominent among them. Removing the need for a print server closes this security hole.

Improve Administrative Ability

A company-wide cloud printing solution means better flexibility, enhanced scalability, and more efficient administration. Web-based administration can manage entire print operations behind a single pane of glass, new devices can be discovered automatically and auto-populated into the platform, and updates can be automated so the entire office is up-to-date with the latest capabilities.

Support Mobile and Hybrid Workforces

Cloud printing solutions also better serve remote and hybrid workforces, allowing workers secure access to print services offsite. If an employee needs to send a print job to the office from home or print from one office to another, for example, cloud-based secure release workflows make this seamless.

Serverless Printing: The Now and Future of Enterprise Printing

There’s no going back to a pre-COVID workplace. While many employees will return to offices, some will not, and for everyone, the advantages of cloud solutions are clear. There’s no better example of this than office printing. Cloud-based print management solutions take the burden off IT personnel, provide unprecedented flexibility for employees, and reduce overhead for companies. It’s safe to say the future belongs in the cloud—but it’s already here in force.

If you’re ready to streamline your IT operations by moving your print queue off the old print server, contact Pharos today to request a demo of Pharos Cloud, our industry-leading cloud-based print management solution.