Decreasing the load for Print Deploy environments

In this article, we discuss some of the ways to reduce the load of the Print Deploy environment. It should be a useful resource if you’re experiencing higher demand for Print Deploy than you anticipated or are otherwise wanted to reduce the resource consumption on your server.

Modify client poll times

Depending on your requirements, chances are that Print Deploy’s default check-in time is more than ample for your organization. If you are experiencing slowdowns or responsiveness issues when using Print Deploy, one of the quickest and easiest ways to reduce the load is by adjusting the client poll times.

The default configuration is for 15 minutes with a ± 5-minute randomized margin so that clients don’t all request updates at the same time.

Consider: What is the maximum amount of time that a user should wait for a change on their machine after a configuration change is made?

Things that may influence this answer:

• Users that frequently move between locations might require more frequent updates.
• If you change your queue configurations often, more frequent updates may be useful.
• Infrequent changes to configuration and location could probably stand to wait longer before checking in with the server again.

If your use case allows for you to increase the timing, a polling config of a few hours or even a full day may be appropriate. See our manual page about this configuration option For more information.

Shrink your zones

Reducing the number of times that the Print Deploy client needs to send a driver is another great way of reducing the load on the Application Server. Below are a couple of ways to do that.

Mark printers as optional installs

A quick way to optimize requests coming into the server is to use our self-service feature that’s available in Print Deploy.

Moving printers to the optional installation will reduce the number of printers that are actively being queried for, and still allows users to install them afterward should they need access to another printer on the list. (This won’t completely prevent access like removing a printer from the zone does.)

Remove unnecessary printers

The simplest way to reduce load is to remove any printers that are unnecessary or unused. If a group doesn’t need access to a printer, it’s a great idea to just remove the printer from the zone! You could also do this by merging printers into a single Find-Me queue if you wanted.

Consider moving the printer to another zone that has fewer users if it’s still in use, but only by a select few users.

Mind your direct-print queue deployments

The PaperCut Direct Print Monitor (DPM) is a great way to track jobs that are submitted through clients directly to the printer (direct IP printing). However, the Direct Print Monitor can generate additional load on your printing environment.

The more clients that run the Direct Print Monitor (including those installed outside of Print Deploy), and the more printers that you deploy with direct printing, the greater the amount of load on your Application Server.

If you are experiencing any kind of performance issues and you have a lot of clients running the Direct Print Monitor software, or if you have a few clients running a lot of Direct Print queues, you might want to investigate migrating over to a server-based connection option such as Mobility Print or native server-shared.

Additional steps

In addition to reducing the load on the Print Deploy environment, you may find additional improvement by focusing your efforts on reducing the load on the Application Server itself.

For more information about what you can do for the Application Server, check out the knowledge base article here.

Still have questions?

Let us know! We love chatting about what’s going on under the hood. Feel free to leave a comment below or visit our Support Portal for further assistance.