Print Servers

Organizations of all sizes require that printing capability is available to users across sites and domains. Most printing is set up within groups in an organization for easy access to all users within the group. Printers can be set up as public printers, where access to them is global, or as private printers, where only a team or certain users within a group have access. This requires careful planning for the number of users that will be accessing any particular group of printers.

Print Server Setup

The requirements for setting up Windows 2000 Server print servers are as follows:

• The server is running Windows 2000 Server.
• The server has sufficient RAM to process documents.

  If a print server manages a large number of printers, the server might require additional RAM beyond what Windows 2000 Server requires for other tasks. If a print server does not have sufficient RAM for its workload, printing performance could deteriorate.

• The server has sufficient disk space to spool documents until they print.

  This is critical when documents are large or likely to accumulate. For example, if 10 users attempt to print at the same time, the print server must have enough disk space to hold all of the documents until the print server sends them to the print device. Documents for which the server does not have sufficient memory stay on the client until the server has sufficient space. This process causes performance to deteriorate on the client.

• All appropriate print drivers are installed.

  Appropriate printer drivers are those written for Windows 2000 Server. You can find appropriate drivers either on the Windows 2000 Server operating system CD or obtain them from the printer manufacturer. Printer drivers for different hardware platforms are not interchangeable.

Clients that are not running Microsoft operating systems have additional requirements to print to network printers. You must install additional services on print servers and install the appropriate printer drivers on the clients. These services are:

• Macintosh — Services for Macintosh
• NetWare — Client and Gateway Services for NetWare
• UNIX TCP/IP Printing — also known as Line Printer Daemon (LPD) Service
• Contact the printer manufacturer for the appropriate drivers.

Guidelines for Setting up a Network Printing Environment

If you do not already have a network printing environment in place, use the following guidelines for developing a network-wide printing strategy:

• Determine the number of users who will print, and the printing workload that they will generate.
• Determine the printing needs. For example, if users in Sales need to print colored brochures, you will need a color print device.
• Determine where the printers will be located. It should be easy for users to pick up their printed documents.
• Determine the number of print servers that will be required to handle the number and types of printers on the network.
• Consider using the following:
  • Shared printers allow multiple users to print to one device.
  • Printer pools allow multiple printers to share a print queue. Print devices should be identical and located near each other, that is, unless they share a common emulation mode.
  • Printer priorities allow print queues to process some print jobs ahead of others based on priorities assigned to users or groups of users (as opposed to processing in chronological order).

Active Directory Integration with Windows 2000 Server Print Services

You can enhance network printing by implementing Active Directory. However, it is important to note that performance and functionality enhancements for Windows 2000 Server print services are all available without deploying Active Directory.

After you have deployed Active Directory, the Windows 2000 server provides a standard printer object. Using this object, you can publish printers to be shared across the network in Active Directory. This provides users with an easy way to search for printers in the Active Directory structure. Users are able to find printer-based attributes such as printing capabilities (PostScript, color, legal-sized paper, and more) and printer location, including the ability to connect to and send documents to that printer (subject to printer permissions).

Testing Printer Shares

After you have installed or upgraded your print servers to Windows 2000 Server, use the following steps to ensure that all the printer shares are functioning.

To test your print server installation

1. In Control Panel, open the Printers folder.
2. On the File menu, click Properties. The printer Properties window appears.
3. In the Properties window, click Print Test Page.
4. Confirm that all the printer shares are operating correctly under Windows 2000 Server.

After printing a test page for each printer on the server, repeat the test from multiple clients and verify that they are able to map to the printer share and submit print jobs.

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