Ten Thousand Printers Can't Be Wrong: - One Driver Fits All

The Problem Give Plug’n Study users easy accountable access to the campus printing environment

Plug’n Study users Number of unique users per month

Outline Presentation Demo Organization Goals Initial solution Yet another demo Architecture Benefits Future / plans

Roskilde University 3 years basic studies in Science, Humanities & Social Sciencesucceeded by 2 years master studies in 2 of 27 disciplines Problem oriented - Project organized -Interdisciplinary Founded students employes

Demo Demo 1: Add Printer - show autoconfiguration... SNMP on mac, don't know on windows... Print page from Text edit "Hi, There" Go to print.ruc.dk and Release to printer...

Organization Project group with representatives from: Novell admins Student portal group (developers) IT management A programmer

Requirements Integrate with existing printing system Support different accounting policies Support Mac, Linux & Windows

Initial solution iPrint for Windows + Linux Final solution Custom solution for MacCustom solution for anybody “Mass virtual printing” Unauthenticated print entry Web based authenticated release PDF based One printer on user’s notebook Driver “hell” at server Access control at server Integrated with ED, NDS & Pcounter

Unauthenticated print entry Traditional method: One installed printer per queue - Find your job and release it Print.ruc.dk One installed printer per user - Release your job to printer

Mass virtual Printing mass virtual hosting: xyz.domain.com - xyz looked up in DB mass virtual printing: print.ruc.dk/xyz - xyz looked up in ED every user has her “own” queue Mapping jobs to printers at release time

Web based authenticated release Easy login to release page using SSO (CAS) OneClick mapping of job to printer Almost better than desktop feedback - due to custom Postscript generation

PDF based User can view or download PDF Server based document assembly Integration with campus print shop Possible integration with institutional repositories

One printer on user’s notebook Using Apple postscript driver auto configures via SNMP IPP print LPD not possible on standard XP installation

Driver “hell” at server Server converts print jobs from PS to PDF Autodiscover printer model via SNMP and uses appropriate PPD

Access control at server ACL information from eDir/LDAP Only accessible printers are shown

Yet another demo Demo 2: Overview - the document is still there - and can be printed... Occasional uses - help integrated...Help for the platforms - with video Printers - list of printers I'm allowed to see Select the ones you normally use...Eg add or remove the colorprinter Give them a nickname Eg rename hallway to hallAll Documents are saved for two days..Possiblity for simple combination/concatenation of documents HistoryAlle documents printed - only titles for documents still available

Architecture

Benefits Campuswide PDF generator Very limited support needed

Future / plans Duplex Direct print N-Up print Print from lab computers Walk-up print Integration with administrative systems

Q & A