FAQ's | Cirrato One Single Server Printing

The database may be mirrored or may use log shipping for redundancy. Driver files can be placed on shared high-availability storage.

Once the new workstation (Windows 7) is in place, the operator / user runs the migration tool in restore mode. This restores all printers and configurations on each workstation. This will provide the user with the same printers and (if driver is the same) the same configurations as previously.

Direct printing: The Cirrato client recognizes that the server is down and preforms ordinary printout without the server having to confirm. End users won't notice any difference. pull print: The Cirrato client presents the user with a list of previously used pull print queues. When you select one of the queues the print job will then be printed out as if that pull print queue were a direct printer. In both cases, statistics will be stored by the client and uploaded to the server once the server is back online. Payment solution (users pay for each print job): Cirrato can be configured to deny printing while the server is offline.

personnel can push printer queues to PCs using the Cirrato webGUI and end users can install printer queues using a web based tree view. None of these methods require the users to be local administrators.

These driver packages are then kept on the client PCs in case they should be needed again to avoid unnecessary downloads. Any method that simply copies these driver archives to the client PCs in the directory where the Cirrato client expects to find them will work. It is also possible to use the drivers that are included with Windows.

If not, one option is to set up a Windows server with the Cirrato client and associated Cirrato printer queue and share the queues using "Print services for UNIX". Another option is to use the Cirrato EUT_API to submit jobs using our submit_job.dll interface. This API requires that the Cirrato client software is installed. Spooled print job files from any source can be submitted as any user using this interface.

be done by assigning or redeploying to a Group Policy Object (GPO).

A Client Billing code can represent a project or department. Reports are available that show how much has been printed for a given client billing code. If the user´s department is available as an attribute in LDAP, the attribute value can be used as the client billing code.

The Cirrato server also listens for incoming TCP connections from administrators on port 5005. The Cirrato monitoring service needs to be able to query all printers using SNMP (usually port 161). Since Cirrato is a direct printing solution, all end-user workstations and laptops need to be able to connect to all printers on TCP port 9100 or 515 depeding on if LPR is used or not. All port numbers are possible to change if needed.

If no local TCP/IP-port printers are installed on workstations, this inventory only needs to take place on print spool servers, if not, the workstations also need to execute the inventory. Cirratoinventory.exe can be placed on a network share end executed from a logon script (negating the need to install the Cirrato client software in order to perform the inventory). When the inventory is complete, Cirrato provides administrative tools to view and use the inventoried data to create printer queues in Cirrato. It is also possible to configure the Cirrato server to instruct the Cirrato clients to delete the old printer queues or UNC-printer connections when installing the corresponding Cirrato queues. Printer drivers are not extracted in the inventory process, these need to be manually uploaded to the Cirrato server using a wizard application called CirratoPak. The same is true for printer configuration settings.

and available on the network again. For customers with a lot of laptop users we recommend that Cirrato Handover Points be set up that will handle the file transfer to the printer on behalf of the laptop.

on what PC a printout is stored.

Some examples:

• Use Rules functionality to enforce restrictions for certain user groups. (Please note: Cirrato uses information provided by the printer driver to decide if the printout is color or B&W.Printer drivers may report color even for B&W printouts. It is therefore important to verify the correctness of the driver before deciding to implement color restriction rules).
• Set up dedicated color queues which are only pushed out to certain user groups while hidden from others.
• Set defaults to B&W and Duplex, but allow users to configure printer settings on a job-by-job basis, then use reports to see who printed in color. We typically recommend option C because it achieves the required savings while being the least restrictive.

1 kB/s is communicated between the Cirrato printing service and the database continuously. About 20 kB of TDS data is transmitted between the Cirrato printing service and the database during a printout. If you have Pull Print, then an additional 3.5 kB per pull print job is communicated between the printer and the Web Service API.

Embedded Pull Print is licensed per device. Cirrato also offers a subscription model where the cost of the solution is charged per month. This is an all in fee. For more information, contact EOMInfo@lrs.com.

driver deployment and so on) we use the standard TCP/IP layer.

Examples are: The Cirrato Web GUI (if HTTPS has been enabled), almost every machine terminal has the option to encrypt credentials (HTTPS), Cirrato MMC Snap-in, Cirrato Client (if user confirmation has been enabled), Self Service (if HTTPS has been enabled).

Cirrato will compress these print jobs, transmit them over the WAN, uncompress and print at the remote location. This speeds up printing and is excellent for clients using Thin Client Terminals, Virtual Desktop and remote desktop access.

Testing can be done based on version (32 or 64 bit) or operating system. Testing can be done per print queue or region. It avoids a new driver from causing disruptions. If a driver is not performing as it should, it can be deleted and the region or print queue that it was tested in, automatically goes back to using the previous version.  

most platforms where Cirrato One Embedded is available.

To this account a short ID can be associated, which allows the user to authenticate and retrieve his printout at a pull print terminal (embedded or external). Cirrato client software should be installed on the public computer or made available for download to guests who bring their own laptops. Alternatively, one PC with the Cirrato client installed could be configured to share printers using IPP (Internet Printing) with authentication.

In a lot of cases restrictions can be put on who you may send emails to.

Using SQL Reporting Services, you can schedule reports that are generated and sent out in various formats automatically. Of course, you can contact us if you want to create custom reports.

Keep in mind that when using pull print, end-user tolerance for delays is less than with direct printing since the user will be waiting by the device for the printout. Therefore it is important that the performance of the Cirrato database is not affected by other software using the same hardware or SQL Server instance.

IIS 6 metabase compatibility layer must be installed to provide support for the automatic installer. Some SMO related .msi packages might have to be downloaded / installed from microsoft.com to the IIS server prior to deployment of the application if the SQL client software is not installed. The affected packages are mentioned in the documentation.

Note: If the minimum requirements for running the server´s operating system with SQL Server exceed the values listed here, they take precedence as requirements for the installation. This is the hardware of one major customer with thousands of users and hundreds of printers/MFDs: Cirrato Server Brand/model: Dell PowerEdge R515 Amount: 2 Processor: AMD Opteron 4184 (2.8GHz, 6 cores) Memory: 8 GB DDR3 Harddisk: 5x 250GB 3.5” SATA Hotplug (RAID 5) Power: 2x 750 watt Operating System: Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 x64 Cirrato Handover Point Processor: Intel DualCore 3GHz Memory: 4 GB Harddisk: 500 GB Power: 2x 750 watt Database Server Brand/model: Dell PowerEdge R515 Amount: 1 Processor: AMD Opteron 4184 (2.8GHz, 6 cores) Memory: 8 GB DDR3 Harddisk: 5x 1TB 3.5” SATA Hotplug (RAID 5) Power: 2x 750 watt Operating System: Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 x64 Database: Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Enterprise.

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You can also choose to enable the "selfservice" feature, which enables users to manage their print jobs and, if they are using Pull Print with manual authentication, their authentication codes. Configuration is done using any third-party msi-package editor (for example the Microsoft Orca tool).

For deployments, the SQL server is usually in a consolidated SQL server running other databases. IIS run on the cirrato server and reporting services run on the report server used by the common SQL server. For testing purposes, all 4 components may be on the same server to reduce the time needed for installation. For production, Cirrato server, IIS, SQL , Reporting services (actually an IIS application that may very well run on the IIS server) may be splitted on 3 or 4 servers.

For production, the capacity must be asessed based on number of transactions.

In general, you will need Windows Server, IIS, SQL (Express version is sufficient for small installations and if you don't need to log reports for longer periods).

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Please contact Cirrato for inquiries about PKI and smart card support.

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If the pager field isn't used, this is usually where we recommend storing the card number to avoid schema changes. When the Cirrato database is used it is possible to use the automatic card database feature which prints a registration page when an unknown card is swiped. This registration page contains a web URL and a temporary code. The user then goes to this web URL (part of the Cirrato webGUI) and logs in using his credentials and then inputs the temporary code, this connects the user with the card number. The next time the user swipes his card at a printer terminal, he is logged in.

Magstripe or contactless Card readers are available for most platforms where Cirrato One Embedded is available.

Click here for an overview of our supported devices per manufacturer. We are rapidly adding support for new models. Models where embedded Pull Print is not yet supported may use the external Cirrato terminal which works with any printer or MFD.

This is what we call a 'Short ID'. The Short ID does not have to be a number. The PIN may also be used in combination with another means of identification like a contactless card, username/password or Short ID. Another option is to only require a PIN for printouts in one or more secure print queues. End-users may set their own PIN on the self-service web page. Which options are available depend on the embedded software used on your printer models. Talk to your sales representative to find out which of the above functions are supported on your printer models.