Decision: Direct IP vs Windows Shared
When migrating from Novell with Printer Installer, you have a choice of what printing environment you want to migrate to: direct IP printing or Windows shared printing.
Direct IP Printing
Direct IP printing means the printer job is spooled on the local computer and sent directly to the printer. By choosing to migrate to direct IP printing with Printer Installer, you simply import the printers from eDirectory into Printer Installer and then convert the end users printer to direct IP printers using the built in end user printer conversion feature. By migrating to managed direct IP printers, you can completely remove expensive print servers from your environment, eliminating the print server point of failure. Printer Installer then provides central management and provisioning of the direct IP printers, allowing you to push printers automatically to users, update end users drivers and printer settings, as well as providing a web portal for end users to quickly find and install printers.
Windows shared (Active Directory) printing
If your business needs require that you have a print server and you are not able to migrate to direct IP printing, Printer Installer allows you to copy your printers from eDirectory to a Windows print server and then converts the end users existing printers into the new Windows shared printers. After the migration is complete use Printer Installer as an on-going printer provisioning application to push printers automatically to a specified subnet, AD group, user, computer, or OU members or empower end users to quickly find and install printers using the printer installation web portal with option floor plan maps.