When it comes to how load balancing in cloud computing works, it helps to think of your cloud print environment like a funnel. Print jobs come in at the top, and they’re printed at the bottom. But in the middle of that funnel, that’s actually where the magic happens, because without print load balancing and intelligent job routing, the risk is all your print jobs will bottleneck and clog your system. At best, this affects your cloud performance. At worst, you risk a crash.
Here’s how print load balancing can help boost your cloud performance and keep your network running smoothly.
What is print load balancing?
Print load balancing simply means distributing print jobs between two or more printers. You can let users do this themselves via print queues, but it’s usually inefficient. The best way is to automate the process with intelligent software and cloud-based tools. That way, every print job goes to the right printer, at the right time.
Load balancing can be implemented at several different layers (or all three simultaneously). These are: the hardware/network layer (see: clustering ), the OS layer (known as printer pooling) and the print protection layer. We’ll mostly be focusing on that third layer in this article.
Print load balancing eliminates print server overload
When you’re looking at how print load balancing helps maximise cloud performance, this is the big one. By distributing print jobs evenly across multiple printers or servers, load balancing means that no single printer is overwhelmed while other machines are sitting there underutilized. This balanced distribution prevents bottlenecks, leading to faster processing and reduced wait times. In other words, jobs get sent where they’re needed most.
Scale up your print infrastructure without breaking a sweat
Cloud-based load balancing usually comes with centralized management tools that allow sysadmins to monitor and control the entire print environment from a single dashboard. This comes with a few perks, but the key ones are flexibility and scalability. Your team can quickly respond to changing demands or system outages, and you can scale up your cloud environment on the fly.
Redundancy and failover is improved
Load balancing inherently helps with stuff like redundancy and reliability by directing print jobs to available printers if one fails or becomes unavailable. This ensures continuous operation without downtime, improving your cloud performance. By not relying on a single printer or print server, you also minimise the risk of business disruptions due to hardware failures. Always a good thing.
Enhanced cloud performance through intelligent job routing
This is where the smarts come in. Load balancers can be tweaked to prioritize certain print jobs or users, ensuring that critical documents are processed first. This is particularly cool in environments where different print jobs must be managed with varying levels of urgency. Like hospitals, or universities. Print management software can also queue print jobs and assign them to printers based on availability, capacity, or specific job requirements.
Print load balancing improves security and compliance
Load balancing is usually seen as a performance booster, not a security feature. But by routing jobs based on user role or sensitivity it can help your organisation maintain data compliance. Most load balancing systems also integrate with authentication protocols, making sure only verified users can print to specific printers.
Print load balancing helps balance the books too
Everyone wants to stretch their budget further, right? By optimizing the use of printers and servers, load balancing reduces the need for excessive hardware, and this lowers operational costs. It’s the definition of print smarter, not harder. It’s also good for energy consumption, since it makes sure that every printer on the network is printing more efficiently. Think about it: do you really know how many printers on your network are necessary?
Print load balancing maximizes cloud performance across any environment
The best news is, you can load balance across any cloud environment, even multi-cloud environments. That means intelligently distributing print jobs across resources hosted on different cloud providers. This is particularly nifty for organizations with complex multi-cloud setups, or those who want to avoid the dreaded vendor lock-in.
Already a PaperCut customer? We have an in-depth article here on how you can enable printer load balancing . If you’re not a PaperCut user and you’re curious about what else PaperCut can do, reach out to our sales team here .
