Managing print drivers has long been a challenge for large organizations with diverse, multivendor printer fleets.
IT teams must constantly update and maintain print drivers and queues, all while ensuring security and compliance.
This article discusses the challenges of print driver management, the different approaches organizations can take to simplify this process, and how Pharos Cloud, an enterprise PrintOps platform, can provide a comprehensive solution to simplify driver management, improve end-user print experience and productivity, and help secure the print environment .
The Challenge of Print Drivers
In traditional print environments, employees’ computers connect to printers through print servers and shared print queues. Each queue hosts a specific printer driver, which needs to be updated every time a vendor releases a new version. This process can be time-consuming for IT staff, especially in large organizations with multivendor fleets.
Furthermore, print drivers often contribute significantly to Help Desk calls as users deal with the complexities of printer mapping and compatibility issues arising from differences in operating systems and printer models. Print drivers can also be a source of vulnerability due to the way Windows handles driver deployment in point-and-print configurations.
Read More: Why Print Drivers Are Becoming a Nightmare for Corporate IT
Different Approaches to Simplifying Driver Management
There are several approaches companies have taken to alleviate the burden of print driver management:
Universal print drivers
These drivers enable users to print to a wide range of devices using a single driver. While they simplify driver management and provide a consistent user experience, they often do not support the full feature set of device-specific drivers and may produce artifacts if not fully compatible with a printer. Most manufacturers’ universal print drivers support their own printers well but are not able to support a multi-vendor fleet found in most organizations.
Driverless printing
This method does not require any printer-specific software or data to be installed on a client. Users can submit print jobs through various means, such as direct application printing, using standards such as IPP Everywhere or AirPrint, send print jobs as email attachments to an assigned email address or upload the print job to a printer from a web browser. Driverless printing eliminates the need for driver management but may not support older printers or vendor-unique capabilities.
Print driver management software
These solutions centralize driver management in a single repository, easing the process of creating print queues, deploying drivers, and enforcing default print settings. However, IT staff still rely on vendor drivers and face the security challenges of the traditional office printing with on-premises infrastructure.
Pharos Cloud: A Comprehensive Solution to Simplify Driver Management
Streamline Print Driver Management
Pharos Cloud simplifies driver management by reducing the number of print drivers that need to be managed.
Pharos utilizes a truly “universal” driver built on the IPP-Everywhere™ open standard.
Traditionally, most “universal” print drivers offer only basic capabilities, and users often experience variations in performance and compatibility issues depending on the manufacturer. Based on the open standard developed by the Printer Working Group, Pharos’ print driver is more capable than traditional “universal” print drivers by providing a consistent experience and behavior across a multivendor fleet and most devices available in the market today. It also allows users to access and utilize a wider range of printer capabilities that have been defined within the IPP standard (i.e., paper size selection, stapling, N-up, etc.). In addition, Pharos’ advanced IPP driver checks printers for features when creating a print queue and displays only the capabilities that are available on the selected device. This helps reduce user confusion as unsupported finishing options won’t be displayed. For example, a black-and-white printer will not show color options.
Pharos Cloud also allows administrators to load manufacturers’ print drivers into Pharos Cloud so organizations can deploy our advanced IPP-Everywhere™ driver to most users and manufacturers’ drivers only where needed. By doing so, the number of drivers that need to be managed is reduced.
Delight Users with Automated Print Queue Deployment
The robust driver management capabilities of Pharos Cloud centralize driver management for IT staff. Beyond basic capabilities such as setting default print settings, Pharos Cloud simplifies driver management by automatically pushing out driver configuration changes or updates, and deploying print queues automatically to user workstations based on their location and permissions. For employees who move and work from different locations, this dynamic capability makes it easy to print to nearby printers without the hassle of first mapping to individual printers.
Enhanced Security with Cloud Printing
One way print drivers are vulnerable to cyberattacks is that they require implementation as a shared resource, due to how Windows handles driver deployment in point-and-print configurations. Print drivers are installed with system level permissions across high numbers of workstations on a network, so they present a high value target for malicious actors.
Many vendor drivers use SNMP for print queue configuration. SNMP and other commonly used protocols are insecure and vulnerable to man-in-the-middle attacks through file replacement, proxy monitoring, or other means—providing attackers the ability to compromise the integrity of the server and the base for lateral movement and privilege escalation across the network.
Pharos’ approach to managing drivers is more secure than other solutions, as Pharos Cloud stores drivers securely in the cloud and does not use SNMP for driver configuration. In addition, Pharos Cloud does not rely on the Windows print spooler for job delivery.
Pharos Cloud only uses the Windows print spooler as an on ramp to get the print job into our system—it doesn’t rely on the Windows print spooler for job delivery like other similar solutions. Pharos Cloud supports zero trust security principles and acts as a trust broker to deliver print jobs to the printer, verifying both user and print device identity on a per-session basis before delivering the print job to the printer. This means that only employees who are properly permitted in the system can submit print jobs to a desired printer. The Windows print spooler cannot broker the communication with a printer like Pharos Cloud.
In addition, Pharos Cloud can deliver print jobs over IPPS—even using manufacturers’ drivers—to ensure print traffic and network communications occur over secure, encrypted channels. Solutions relying on the Windows Print Spooler for job delivery fall back to the unsecured port 9100.
At the End of the Day
Managing print drivers is a daunting task for IT teams, especially in large organizations with diverse printer fleets. The constant need to update and maintain drivers, ensure security, and address compatibility issues can be overwhelming. However, by adopting a comprehensive, enterprise PrintOps platform like Pharos Cloud, organizations can address the challenges of print driver management and ensure a seamless printing experience for their users.
