Scenario: The university

West Face University has a student population of 10,000 full-time students and off-campus and part-time students. IT services centrally control the network, however, individual faculties and departments also offer and manage some of the specialist IT infrastructure. All major operating systems are in use on both the workstations and servers.

Requirements

Centrally managed printers are hosted in a clustered print serverA print server is a system responsible for hosting print queues and sharing printer resources to desktops. Users submit print jobs to a print server rather then directly to the printer itself. A print server can be a dedicated server but on many networks this server also performs other tasks, such as file serving environment. The solution needs to support clusteringClustering allows your organisation to ensure your services are not affected if anything should happen to your main server. PaperCut is a cluster compatible application and is supported under Windows (Microsoft Cluster Server / MSCS, Microsoft Failover Cluster Manager / MSFCM, Vetitas Cluster Server / VCS) and Linux (Novell Cluster Services / NCS, Linux-HA) at all levels of the application, including: clustering at the print spooler service layer by integrating with clustering services, failover based clustering at the Application Server layer using clustering services, and at the database layer by utilising cluster aware databases such as Microsoft SQL Server, PostgreSQL, or Oracle..
IT services want to provide the option for department labs to also have their printers controlled via the central system.
User ClientThe User Client tool is an add-on that resides on a user's desktop. It allows users to view their current account balance via a popup window, provides users with the opportunity to confirm what they are about to print, allows users to select shared accounts via a popup, if administrators have granted access to this feature, and displays system messages, such as the "low credit" warning message or print policy popups. needs to be optional. It would be preferable for students to have access to their account details via a web browser.
The design of the web interface should be customizable.
The system must be secure and support SSLSecure Sockets Layer (SSL) is the standard security technology for establishing an encrypted link between a web server and a browser. This link ensures that all data passed between the web server and browsers remain private and integral. The protocol uses a third party, a Certificate Authority (CA), to identify one end or both end of the transactions. To be able to create an SSL connection a web server requires an SSL certificate. When you choose to activate SSL on your web server you will be prompted to complete a number of questions about the identity of your website and your company. Your web server then creates two cryptographic keys - a Private Key and a Public Key.-based encryption.
The system should run on top of a database system and allow data access to facilitate custom reports using packages such as Crystal Reports or JasperSoft Studio.
An open source system would be preferable.

Implementation

Initial installation

University-wide deployments can be quite involved. Most large universities that have deployed PaperCut NG/MF have worked closely with the PaperCut NG/MF development team during implementation. A lot can be gained by arranging a teleconference or similar with the development team. We're always happy to help our customers deploy the ideal solution.

Requirement 1

PaperCut NG/MF supports clustering at all application layers including the print server, the database server, and the Application ServerAn Application Server is the primary server program responsible for providing the PaperCut user interface, storing data, and providing services to users. PaperCut uses the Application Server to manage user and account information, manage printers, calculate print costs, provide a web browser interface to administrators and end users, and much more. on both Microsoft Windows and Linux. Setting up PaperCut NG/MF in Microsoft Clustering Services is covered in Clustering and high availability. The PaperCut NG/MF development team has experience using Linux-HA (High-Availability Linux) and other tools to support customers who use Linux.

Requirement 2

Printers and labs hosted by individual faculties and departments outside the central IT services area can optionally be joined into the campus-wide system via PaperCut NG/MF's secondary serverA PaperCut secondary server is a system that directly hosts a printer, that is, a print server with a Print Provider installed. A secondary server can be a server style system hosting many printers, a desktop style system hosting printer(s) also shared to other network users, or a desktop style system with the printer used only for local users (not shared). support. Central IT staff can approve these secondary servers via IP address and grant selected staff administrator level access to the system's Admin web interface on a case-by-case basis. See Configuring secondary print servers and locally attached printers for more information on secondary servers.

Requirement 3

PaperCut NG/MF's User Client, which is optional is most environments, allows users to access their accounts and view their account balance, transaction and printing history, and use advanced tools such as TopUp/Pre-Paid Cards and transfers. More information on the web-based users tools is available at Interface levels.

Requirement 4

You can easily change the design and layout of the User web interfaceThe User web interface provide a range of services for users, including a summary of usage and balance history, a list of the shared accounts that the user can use for printing, the current costs for printing usage, ability to add balance by using a TopUp/Pre-Paid Card or an external payment system (when using the payment gateway module), transfer funds to other users, view a history of balance transactions, view a list of the user's recent printing, and view print jobs pending release (when using a Release Station). using HTML and Cascading Style Sheets. Customizing the User web interface design is covered in Customize the User web interface.

Requirement 5

PaperCut NG/MF provides secure connections for report access and administration via SSL-based encryption. Larger universities often have their own certificate signing procedure for SSL based servers. PaperCut NG/MF can even accept these signed certificates. SSL-based encryption is set up by default and is accessed via a URL such as:

https://[server_name]:9192/admin

Information on using a custom SSL certificateSSL certificates are small data files that digitally bind a cryptographic key to an organization’s details, such as a company's domain name, your company name, your address, your city, your state and your country. When installed on a web server, it activates the padlock and the HTTPS protocol (over port 443) and allows secure connections from a web server to a browser. When a browser connects to a secure site it retrieves the site's SSL certificate and checks that it has not expired, it has been issued by a Certification Authority the browser trusts, and that it is being used by the website for which it has been issued. If it fails on any one of these checks the browser will display a warning to the end user letting them know that the site is not secured by SSL. SSL certificates can be either self-signed or CA signed. is covered in Generate SSL/HTTPS keys.

Requirement 6

Hosting the PaperCut NG/MF system on top of an external database system such as Microsoft's SQLStructured Query Language (SQL) is a special-purpose programming language designed for managing data held in a relational database management system (RDBMS), or for stream processing in a relational data stream management system (RDSMS). Server offers a number of advantages including easy data access, better performance and scalability, and the ability to take advantage of existing backup processes. More information on external RDMS support is available at Deployment on an external database (RDBMS).

The data structure is simple and administrators with report writing skills will quickly be able to access the data for custom reporting via tools such as MS Access, Crystal Reports, or JasperSoft Studio. You can schedule and run JasperSoft Studio reports directly from PaperCut NG/MF.

Requirement 7

PaperCut NG/MF is a commercial system with commercial level support. However, unlike many other commercial applications, PaperCut Software Pty. Ltd. does offer source code access. A number of universities have used the source code access for:
- auditing - verifying that the software is secure.
- customization - knowing how the application works and how to implement add-ons.
Large universities should also look at the large school scenario. Features such as shared accounts and secure printing are also applicable to many university environments.