Back in 2021, PaperCut released a new powerful print management solution: PaperCut Hive. Designed for SMBs that couldn’t manage printing because of high costs, PaperCut Hive is the perfect SaaS solution to combat those issues. But what is PaperCut Hive, and how does it work?
What is PaperCut Hive?
PaperCut Hive is a cloud-native print management solution that has MFP embedded software as well as IoT and Edge Mesh technology. Essentially what this means is that PaperCut Hive allows you to manage your printing without the need and maintenance of a print server on your local network while maintaining high level security. PaperCut Hive is simple to set up, use, and can scale to businesses of any size. So how does it work?
How Does PaperCut Hive Work?
PaperCut Hive takes advantage of Edge Mesh technology, which allows it to scale with any size organization, as well as have very high reliability. Edge Mesh uses Internet of Things technology to make any computers connected to your network an endpoint for processing print jobs, which is more reliable than a single print server. If a device becomes unreachable, for example, someone leaves the office with their laptop, the Edge Mesh automatically replaces that device with another in the network so there is no downtime. When you send a print job, the information travels through each node until it reaches the printer or MFP where the print job can be released.
To maintain security, all documents transmitted for print jobs are stored only on the local network, nothing on the document is sent to the cloud, and the print job is encrypted throughout the whole process. Information about the print job is sent to the cloud such as number of pages printed, whether the documents are printed in color or black and white, and paper size for print management purposes. The only time security can become a potential issue is if employees are printing from out of the office. Being a cloud solution PaperCut Hive allows users to print documents from anywhere via the cloud by using their Cloud Node. The Cloud Node can be enabled and disabled and connects devices from outside of your Edge Mesh into it to transmit print jobs. The documents are sent to your Edge Mesh through the Cloud Node encrypted and are immediately deleted after the print job is complete, always maintaining the highest level of security.
Benefits of PaperCut Hive
PaperCut Hive offers many benefits to organizations that ultimately help you reduce costs and print less – shrinking your carbon footprint.
Key Benefits Include:
- Being able to print from any device to any printer
- Convenient printing to one queue that can be picked up at any device
- Simple set up and use
- Built-in security features that protect your data throughout the whole printing process
- Forest positive printing with the PaperCut Grows program
- No more uncollected print jobs
- Reminders that encourage users to print with sustainability in mind
- The ability to print from anywhere to your network through the cloud
PaperCut Hive also works with any brand your organization may have in its print fleet, and better yet, it works this way right out of the box. There is an option to have embedded software installed on your print devices for PaperCut Hive, however this works on most brands, not all. More are constantly being added.
If you’d like to learn more about PaperCut Hive, contact our team of experts today:
Sources: PaperCut | PaperCut Blog