Introduction

Printing is a vital component of any office environment. Printing can be as simple as connecting a printer to a computer and installing a driver, but it can easily become a complex task with many variables. This is especially true for modern office environments that have adopted the Microsoft Remote Desktop Services infrastructure. IT administrators in such environments are faced with the need to ensure normal usage of local printers, especially when people are using virtual applications and remote desktops.

Printing while using RDS has proven to be a challenge to many enterprises whose IT administrators tend to struggle to provide the technology that can adequately deliver on printing demands created by virtualization and mobile deployments. This is because users can only print through RDS if the same set of drivers is installed on both a local device and a terminal server. Problem is, many printer drivers simply do not function in a Terminal Services environment, so the few available technologies became nonviable. Furthermore, ensuring that terminal servers contain a copy of every printer driver used throughout the entire organization is a major management headache that proves to be very taxing on IT administrators and, consequently, affects the organizations themselves.

Parallels® Remote Application Server offers a variety of features that enable administrators to successfully integrate printing in every deployment scenario. By choosing the most appropriate printing configuration for their organization, IT administrators can significantly improve and simplify the user experience when it comes to printing.