Chapter 1. Introduction

Table of Contents

What is PaperCut NG?
Benefits
Key Features
System Requirements
How does PaperCut NG work?
Key Concepts
Understanding the print process flow
Architecture Overview
The Top-Ten Hidden Features!
One: Remote Administration
Two: Secondary Servers and Local Printers
Three: Shared Accounts
Four: Customizable Web Interface
Five: XML Web Services and Command-line Control
Six: Hold/Release Queues and Release Stations
Seven: Text Print Logs
Eight: 3rd Party Database Support
Nine: Zero-install Client Deployment
Ten: The Development Team

What is PaperCut NG?

PaperCut NG is a comprehensive solution designed to manage and control an organization's print and Internet usage. The expectations of management and control vary from organization to organization, so PaperCut NG is designed for flexibility to ensure organizations of all types, ranging from schools, universities, small businesses and large business, can utilize the system for their own requirements and purposes. Possible implementations can include:

  • Silent activity monitoring

  • Visible activity monitoring and expense tracking by work area, projects, departments

  • Quota/allowance enforcement

  • Up-front user pays systems or pay-per-print systems

In addition PaperCut NG provides system administrators with a kit of tools to manage printer including:

  • Advanced print document/job filtering

  • Detailed logging and reporting

  • Access control

Benefits

Some of the key benefits of PaperCut NG are:

  • Transfer accountability to users or departments by individually tracking activity.

  • Creates responsibility and environmental awareness by drawing users' attention to their own activities.

  • Reduces overall printing cost by virtue of either making users aware of their own activity, enforcing reasonable quotas, or recovering full costs from end-users.

  • Discourages overuse of IT resources.

  • Improve efficiency by allowing administrators to "encourage" use of underutilized printers and/or servers.

  • Improve network reliability by implementing rules to prevent printer queue jams, queue hogging, and inappropriate printing types.

  • Encourage responsible Internet usage, resulting in reduced Internet usage costs and reduce congestion on Internet connections.

Key Features

Some of the key features of PaperCut NG are:

  • Track all printing activity by user, client, printer and document metadata.

  • Enforce per user quotas, allowances or budgets

  • Full differential print cost/charging system allowing different costs to be assigned on a per printer basis with advanced options to charge different amounts based on document type.

  • Hardware neutral solution support all major printer types and operating systems. No hardware vendor lock-in!

  • Both cross-platform and multi-platform support. Run a mix of Windows and/or Linux print servers and support clients ranging from Windows, Mac, Linux and Unix.

  • Internet control module allows costs to be defined for both data downloaded and time used.

  • Support for all major Internet proxy servers on all platforms, allowing the Internet Control module to work with existing infrastructure.

  • Provides end-users with management options such as funds transfers, usage tracking and reporting.

  • Provides end-users with advanced options to allocate print jobs to shared accounts, cost centers, faculties or departments.

  • Single sign-on user authentication with native integration with Active Directory or the system's underlying user management. (no separate passwords to manage!)

  • Flexible hold/release queue support with Release Station software allowing administrators to implement approved and secure printing environments.

  • Service Oriented Architecture utilizing the latest software design methods including, test driven development, XML Web Services and layered architecture. This ensures scalability and stability by design.

  • Advanced reporting and charts available in standard formats including PDF, Excel, and HTML. All reports accessible from anywhere on the network via a standard web browser.

  • Ability to run on top of leading 3rd party Relational Database Management Systems (RDBMS) including Microsoft SQL Server and PostgreSQL Database.

  • Enterprise level security and encryption based on SSL.

  • Open architecture with source code access and API documentation.

System Requirements

PaperCut NG supports the following server platforms:

  • Microsoft Windows Server 2008 (any edition)

  • Microsoft Windows Server 2003 (any edition)

  • Microsoft Windows 2000 (Pro and Server)

  • Microsoft Windows XP (Pro)

  • Macintosh OS X 10.4 or 10.5 (e.g. Tiger or Leopard) (both PowerPC and Intel supported)

  • Novell Open Enterprise Server 2 (OES2 SP1+)

  • Most modern Linux operating systems including:

    • Red Hat Enterprise Linux (AS 3.0, ES 3.0, AS 4.0, ES 4.0)

    • Novell SuSE Linux (8.2, 9.0+)

    • Fedora Core

    • Debian (3.1+)

    With print queues hosted via:

    • Samba based print queues

    • CUPS based print queues

The requirements for the optional Internet control module are described in Chapter 14, Net Control in Detail.

Servers and clients must use user ID/username based authentication (e.g. Active Directory, Windows NT, LDAP, or local system accounts).

Sites with more than 500 users should consider a server class system with more than 512MB of RAM and 500 MB of free disk space.

PaperCut NG supports approximately 90% of printers on the market. Where possible we recommend printers that support one of the two major printer language standard - Postscript or PCL. Up-to-date information on printer compatibility is covered on the PaperCut Software website knowledge base at: PaperCut Knowledgebase Printer Information

On workstation clients:

  • All supported Microsoft Windows platforms (Windows 95 and later)

  • Macintosh OS X 10.3.9 or higher recommended

  • Most modern Linux and Unix Operating Systems (Java 5.0+ required for optional client tool)