The ThinPrint .print Product Family

ThinPrint .print is a family of software products with the common goal of improving printing and simplifying print administration in distributed environments where printers are often hundreds of miles away from an application that prints. At the center of this family is the .print Engine, which consists of:

• a printer port called ThinPrint Port,
• a universal printer driver called ThinPrint Output Gateway,
• the ThinPrint AutoConnect service to assure the correct assignment between users and printer objects and to automate the setup of print servers,
• a print job tracking service* which monitors all print jobs processed by the .print Engine and stores information about them in a SQL database and
• the necessary user interfaces for configuration and maintenance.

* Included with the .print Server Engine and .print Application Server Engine

Every .print environment requires at least one .print Engine of which various types have been developed, each matching a certain environment. For environments without centralized print servers the following .print Engines are available:

• .print Application Server Engine: designed for Microsoft Windows based terminal servers with or without terminal services add-ons like Citrix XenApp Server
• .print RDP Engine: designed for smaller Windows based terminal server environments
• .print Desktop Engine: designed Microsoft based physical or virtual desktops.

Environments utilizing a Microsoft Windows based print server can greatly benefit from the following .print Engines:

• .print Server Engine: the only .print Engine that processes a print job created by another PC or server. This unique feature makes the .print Server Engine the centerpiece of an enterprise print environment. Since it can process print jobs from all kinds of other computers it doesn’t matter what desktop- or application deployment strategies are in use today or in the future. As long as a shared printer is made available, the user and the network environment in general will benefit from ThinPrint .print. Features like V-Layer printing, which allows a user to pick up a universal printer driver share and still have a native printer driver render the print job on the print server, or the Virtual Channel Gateway, which enables a print job from the print server to be sent via the RDP/ICA connection of a user to a locally installed client printer, further increase the benefits the .print Server Engine provides. Finally, due to its significance to enterprise printing the .print SE can be installed on clustered print servers.

A variation of the .print Server Engine for virtualized environments is the:

• .print Engine for VMware View: This engine is installed on a central print server and provides the same core features as the .print Server Engine with the limitation that only print jobs from virtual desktops managed by VMware View Manager are processed.

Environments that rely on printing from IBM AS400 can benefit from the:

• .print Engine AS/400 print which is developed by XPS software under license from ThinPrint.

The second most important part of a .print environment is the .print Client. A variety of .print Clients has been developed by ThinPrint and its OEM partners. The decision which .print Client is required and where it needs to be installed depends on what benefits ThinPrint .print shall provide. Printing without compression, encryption or using DRIVER FREE PRINTING does not require a .print Client.

Every .print Engine can print via LPD directly to a LPR device while controlling the maximum bandwidth of the transmission. A .print Engine configured to print to a .print Client can also:

• print via TCP, RDP or ICA,
• compress the print job,
• control the bandwidth and
• utilize client side printer information.

When .print Engine and .print Client both run on a Microsoft Windows desktop or server operating system DRIVER FREE PRINTING can also be used on the server or desktop that is running the .print Engine.

The following four other members of the .print product family work in conjunction with the .print Engine and the .print Client to provide additional benefits or support more specific environments.

• Host Integration Service: One challenge is printing from a host system to the local printer of a user who is logged on to a remote desktop or terminal server. The .print Host Integration Service allows users with an active RDP/ICA session to print from a host system to any locally installed printer.
• Queue Manager: Another challenge is ensuring that print jobs print successfully especially when the connection between the printing and the receiving entity is not permanent or instable. The .print Queue Manager addresses this challenge by monitoring the printer queues of the .print Engine and managing retries and deletions of print jobs.
• Connected Gateway: A third challenge exists when the computer sending the print job cannot reach the computer that is supposed to be receiving the print job because of NAT, inbound firewalls or non-routable subnets. By reversing the direction of communication, the .print Connected Gateway overcomes that issue. Instead of the .print Engine opening a connection to the .print Client, both components open a connection to the .print Connected Gateway which is a service installed on a network segment that is accessible from either side.

More technical descriptions can be found here:

• .print on the server, the network and the client
• Universal printer drivers
• Best practices
• How does ThinPrint .print help me with...