Introduction

File and print services are critical for users and applications within information technology (IT) environments. However, these services are often ignored during the IT infrastructure design phase, which leads to environments where printer and file repositories appear in ad hoc fashion without clear strategies for their management. Planning for these services is vital; requirements of the users and applications need to be assessed and available technologies matched to the requirements in order to provide a supportable package of technologies and services.

On This Page

	Who Should Read This Blueprint
	Knowledge Prerequisites
	Business Need

Who Should Read This Blueprint

This blueprint is written for IT professionals who are responsible for designing file and print services in an enterprise environment. The reader of this blueprint is expected to have an understanding of its technical content; however, a service-level expert is not required to follow the enterprise-level discussions and understand the decisions that are made.

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Knowledge Prerequisites

The reader of this blueprint should have an understanding of file and print service technologies and the business requirements for their availability. In addition, the reader should have a good working knowledge of operating systems and server hardware along with the types of applications that run on them.

The reader is also expected to have some knowledge and understanding of the following:

The “References” section at the end of this blueprint provides addresses of Web sites that provide additional information on file and print services.

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Business Need

Organizations need to share, store, retrieve, and print information in an efficient, cost-effective, secure, and reliable manner.

Information may exist in the form of static files, such as large format architectural drawings and external brochures, software code and executables, plans and presentations, pictures and spreadsheets; information may also take the form of dynamic data such as databases, event logs, or captured video streams. In each case, information exists as collections of files and is managed accordingly.

As the amount of data increases, the cost of storage and maintenance also increases due to the administrative and hardware overheads. A number of studies have shown how data growth continues to be exponential while the resources available for managing it remain flat or area reduced. It is important to ensure that users can access data quickly and easily and that it can be managed efficiently.

Organizations also need to be able to publish and print information in hard copy format, whether for legal, business, or personal requirements. Organizations need to print on multiple devices having multiple attributes at different times of the day; they must also provide users with the ability to find and use printers easily without requesting assistance from the IT support organization. In addition, printing assets need to be managed securely and kept online and available at the same time.

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