Ricoh Canada

Case Study: Canadian provincial government

How a Canadian provincial government transformed its print infrastructure to minimize IT network strain, reduce costs and seamlessly service 500-plus locations.

About the customer

This Canadian provincial government serves many constituents, issuing everything from driver's licenses and plate stickers to health cards and birth certificates. It also serves as the governing umbrella over a wide variety of public sector clients that oversee the environment, businesses, roads, court system, health care programs, tourism, the arts and much more.

We removed 250-plus print servers—equating to more than 50 percent of a provincial government's print servers.

Challenge

  • Slow network connection for workers in remote locations

  • Costly print network was fragmented and complex

  • Thousands of unnecessary print queues, which were difficult to centrally manage

A Canadian provincial government was providing network connectivity for the print environment serving 500-plus locations. It had a large print infrastructure with hundreds of print servers housed in data centers to serve these locations. Yet constituents in remote locations such as court houses and local government offices experienced frustration from slow network connectivity when printing to a local device.

This provincial government's IT department was supporting up to 15,000 print queues and all related equipment in a costly, unwieldy network. When new print queues were installed to handle growing demand, old print queues were left idle—adding to the size and complexity of the print infrastructure. And if a printer went down at a location, a worker had to find another local alternative, which may or may not have an active print driver to connect to the network.

Solution

Supporting up to 15,000 print queues and all of the related equipment, a provincial government needed simplicity and central management of its printing environment.

  • In-depth questioning and analysis during discovery

  • Tested several server-less print solutions within the multi-vendor environment.

  • Implemented automated print queue management.

We had been providing multifunction printers to this provincial government when senior IT management approached us to help implement a better, more stable print infrastructure for its multi-vendor environment. First, we asked in-depth questions to get to the root of the instability. Then, we went to this provincial government's largest data center to assess the environment. There, we uncovered more than 250 print servers and nearly 15,000 print queues—many of which were on the network but no longer being used.

We next tested a variety of server-less print solutions to determine the best fit to improve and stabilize the print infrastructure. We landed on a solution that would automate the changes to the print infrastructure and tested it in a development environment to prove it would make connecting to the server-less network seamless. By automating the print infrastructure, we were able to remove print servers and make print queue management more efficient.

This provincial government signed on with our print management solution as an annual subscription. With the rollout completed, the next phase is now in progress — implementing a secured pull print style solution to the print devices as well as mobile printing.

Results

  • Smooth rollout with very few service desk support incidents

  • Annual cost savings per print server of nearly $7,000 based on industry standards

  • End users can now print quickly and reliably

  • Repeatable solution for broader public sector clients

During the one-year initial implementation, there was a dramatic reduction in the number of print-related service desk incidents—fewer than one-half of one percent of all users sought assistance—making it one of the most trouble-free IT project rollouts in this provincial government.

With far fewer print servers in use and less IT support required to maintain the infrastructure, this provincial government is expected to see sizable annual savings of up to $7,000 per print server based on current industry standards. The simplified, server-less infrastructure also enables even remote end users to print quickly and reliably to a convenient local printer.

Now that the solution has been tested and proven, it is authorized by this provincial government to be implemented in other areas of the public sector. Going forward, this provincial government's municipalities, healthcare facilities and other local government entities can leverage the solution and contract to improve and stabilize their print infrastructures.