Standalone vs Multi-Site Scenarios

Depending on the size of your organization, you will decide whether to run a standalone print server or more servers managed centrally.

The important questions to base this decision on are:

How many locations do I need to manage centrally?
Where in the world they are and in what time zones?
What is my infrastructure and network?

Single Location

Single Location with One Print Server

A single print server is suitable for most smaller and medium-sized organizations. If you are in one of these two categories, you will most likely start with just one Standalone MyQ X Print Server installation.

And if you realize it’s time to grow, and you suddenly need more print servers, local or remote, you can always scale up by migrating to the central-site environment.

Single Location with More Print Servers

If your environment consists of many devices, users, or client applications connected to MyQ, distributing the load between multiple print servers may be recommended.

In this case, you might end up installing a Central Server, connecting two or more site servers to it, and thus splitting your local branch between multiple installations.

This decision should be made based on the expected load and traffic on such a site. It is recommended to consider this scenario with the system requirements in mind.

The maximum of devices managed on all connected sites combined is 30,000.

Consider multiple local site servers if:

Your location has more than ∼600 devices

Single MyQ X Print Servers can handle more than 600 devices. However, the more devices, the more communication goes through the server, and you might benefit from spreading the load between multiple MyQ instances.

You will be running the MyQ Desktop Client on more than 10,000 computers

Similarly to the number of devices, the more Desktop Clients will communicate with the MyQ X server, the more you might need to spread the network traffic across multiple MyQ site servers.

You want to offer location-based (aka proximity) print services

When using the MyQ Desktop Client’s printer provisioning functionality, you may benefit from multiple site servers, especially when your users roam between different physical locations.

The Desktop Client can reconfigure itself when the user changes location, removing unnecessary printers from the user’s computer, and installing the ones available in the location from when they are currently connecting.

Failover and high availability

A cluster of local servers helps with high availability, offering a fallback print server where the communication can be routed.

Multiple Locations

More Locations with a Print Server in Each One

If you are going to deploy MyQ in an organization with more branches, a Central-Site environment with a print server in each of the locations may be the obvious choice.

The maximum number of devices managed on all connected sites combined is 30,000.

Consider multiple site servers if:

You are an organization with quite a hefty print environment, many nearby or distant branches across different time zones
You handle large numbers of users, e.g. hundreds of thousands (and you do not need to have all users existing on every single site)
You want to spool jobs locally, and thus have them never leave the site’s premises because of the size of jobs or to maintain low network traffic (in case you cannot utilize local spooling features such as Client Spooling through the MyQ Desktop Client or Device Spooling on supported devices)
You need a multi-layered access control where some individuals administer your print environment locally at the Central Server, and local administrators in each branch should have permission to manage only their local environment (aka multi-tenancy)

Multiple Remote Locations Managed by One Print Server

Even if you have several locations, you may not need a print server in each. One print server in a centralized location can serve printers and computers in multiple locations if the size of the environment allows for it and the system requirements are adequate for such a configuration.

Consider cross-site management if…

You are an organization with some/many small remote branches and you do not want to dedicate extra resources to these branches as running many individual local print servers would create unnecessary IT overhead

Recommendations for More Site Servers

While this means two or more separate print servers manage users and printers in your environment, MyQ X offers features that make this experience as smooth as possible for the end-users.

Job Roaming

With Job Roaming enabled on these local print servers, your users do not need to think about where they are sending documents in their day-to-day processes.

Under normal circumstances, you would not see the documents sent to Server A while checking your job list on a device connected to Server B.

However, with Job Roaming, this is not a concern. Job Roaming allows users to see all their documents no matter on what site server in the environment they are stored.

The Central Server distributes the user’s job list across all connected site servers and when it is time to print the document, it is downloaded to the site where it is requested.

Decrease Network Load with Local Spooling Alternatives

You can utilize serverless direct IP printing to devices with Local Print Spooling. The options with MyQ X are:

Client Spooling with the MyQ Desktop Client
Device Spooling to devices equipped with Embedded Terminals

These methods let you print directly to printers, with no print server as a middleman, and no large data transfers to a centralized server, while still giving you additional functionality such as secure authenticated job release, printing policies, user access control, credit and quota charging, and advanced accounting and reporting.

Client Spooling

When printing in the Client Spooling mode, the document (print data) is not transmitted to a centralized print server. Only information about where the document was sent, by which user, and where the print data is stored.

Only when the print is initiated on a printer, the Desktop Client sends the print data from the computer directly to the printer.

Device Spooling

MyQ Embedded terminals on supported devices can accept incoming jobs and either print them directly or hold them to allow for secure authenticated release.

Device Spooling is supported on selected Embedded Terminals, see the documentation to find which ones.

Cloud Connections for Roaming Users

Since MyQ X 10.2, users connecting their cloud storages on one site server will have them available immediately on all other site servers, without needing to connect them on each site individually.

Granular Access Control and User Synchronization

You can configure what users are synchronized to each site server, and allocate user rights per site individually. This gives you flexible options to achieve the least-access approach and granular access control. Only users existing in the location get privileged access to selected parts of the MyQ system on that site.

Deployment of Site Servers

You can use the Restore settings functionality to ensure that the configurations on servers dedicated to one site are the same. Set up the first site server and create the others from this template.