Output Management from the Cloud

Output Management from the Cloud – Is that possible?

Hardly anything else has affected the IT world in the last 20 years like the Cloud. As vague as the subject seems in some ways, there are tangible advantages to expansive IT outsourcing to large service providers and pay-per-use models. But will the elimination of local operations also work in that area where you definitely need to keep using your own hardware: printing? Corporate output management as SaaS service from the Cloud – is that possible? Thousands of print orders per day traveling back and forth between the location and the Cloud, straining the WAN? What about IT security and data privacy? And how does the data ultimately come to the printer?

SEAL Systems has been working with these topics for years. This year we will offer, with PLOSSYS 5, a solution that allows output management in a seamless mix & merge between cloud service and an owner-operated company, from complete installation on the premises to serverless printing from the public Cloud.

Cloud printing makes your print processes flexible, cost-effective and easy.

And with SEAL Systems they’re even hardware neutral.

In order to do this, we’ve placed our proven PLOSSYS output management engine with Version 5 on a completely new technical basis. As before, it can naturally be installed on classic servers or even deployed over software containers in Cloud environments. A microservice architecture allows only those services to be performed that are actually needed. So, for example, classical print output can be done in-house as before, minimizing the data traffic between Cloud and location, while seldom-used components are booked in addition as needed and billed only according to actual use. A control component ensures that the right services are addressed for every order, avoiding unnecessary steps.

The test system: our mini data center

We can already show you today how well this technology works. We’ve designed a Cloud in miniature, in which the crucial components have already been realized by PLOSSYS 5 — printing & converting with distributing, scaling, load balancing, failover and multi-architecture container technology — and all this is multi-platform and on the smallest hardware.

Our state-of-the-art mini data center is fitted with 14 ARM32, ARM64 and Intel64 servers which are supplied with the same container images and managed with exactly the same technology that we also use in the large environments of our cloud service. This way we can reproduce a myriad of operating conditions, load situations and problem situations all the way to complete malfunction scenarios under realistic conditions, and subject the PLOSSYS components to thorough scrutiny. Because even if output management comes from the Cloud in the future, there’s still one thing to be prevented at all costs, and that’s malfunctions.

“The Cloud a powerful tool when it’s used right — it can help to simplify IT landscapes, reduce investment and lower administration costs. Not every IT process is right for cloud operations, but with sound judgment and competent partners, businesses can save substantial costs with the Cloud – especially with standard processes like output management.”

Thomas Tikwinski, Head of Developmemnt at SEAL Systems

Cloud printing has many advantages!

Printing from the Cloud…

• … doesn’t need its own infrastructure.
  You can easily book all necessary services as managed services.
• … can be easily tied in with your current application landscape.
  Whether SAP, Mainframe or Windows, the connection is done over SEAL Systems’ proven integration components.
• … is easily scaleable.
  Print 100,000 pages today and 500 tomorrow, without additional hardware. Pay for only what you use.
• … also works easily across multiple locations.
  Print without additional infrastructure from different locations, and of course from your smartphone or tablet.
• … can be easily expanded.
  you can expand your cloud installations quickly and easily for special services like stamps and watermarks. The connection to other cloud services is also no problem.
• … is secure.
  Our cloud products protect your valuable data from source to printing with state-of-the-art security technology. So that your print orders comes out where you want it to.

Interested? Request an appointment, with no obligation — we’ll gladly answer your questions!

Or get in touch with us directly!

Tobias Habermann, Business Development Manager, will be happy to assist you.

tobias.habermann@sealsystems.de
+49 9196 926 132

By the way: we’ve made our blueprints and instructions for the miniature Cloud available as open source, gratis. To learn more, just send us an email at opensource@sealsystems.de.