Switch between printservers

[Guest]

I have two identical printservers. Sames queues on both servers. All users print on one printserver. If a printserver goes down, I want to switch users as fast as possible to the other printserver. I want to do this with the least possible user action. Servers are W2K, Clients systems are XP. Clustering is no option. I'm thinking towards DNS or scripts. Any ideas?

 

[JohnNews]

Andre:


ANSWERS
You did not mention how many users you have on your network.
I have worked on a similar problem before and here are my thoughts.

It is good to have two identical print servers - 1 production (primary), 1
backup (secondary).

If your production Print Server goes down then users can switch MANUALLY to
the backup (secondary) print server and install the desired drivers. One of
the Best Practices of network management is that users must be educated to
do certain basic things; otherwise they put an undue burden on help Desk or
Admin. Do not feel badly about forcing users to install printer drivers.
In the long run this lowers the stress on the network Admin folks and
educates the users to be more independent. You may want to consider
preparing an email with the installation instructions demonstrated by
graphics (ALT + PrTSc). If you ever suffer a production/primary breakdown
then this email can be sent to your users as a group.

When I worked this printer project I created a web (HTML) interface. I
pasted all printers into the web interface. To install any printer drivers
users just had to click any of the 50 links. I used IPP,
http://<PrintServerName>/printers , and IIS.
I am not prepared to make life any easier for users. If you want more
project details I can supply same.

In my opinion, clustering 2 print servers is an expensive option. Also, the
added complexity increases the possibility of failure.


QUESTIONS
* How can DNS be used to facilitate the print server switch over ?


CONCLUSION
Lets continue this discussion until both parties have resolved all
questions. Thanks in advance.



Thanks,
John.

I have two identical printservers. Sames queues on both servers. All users

print on one printserver. If a printserver goes down, I want to switch users
as fast as possible to the other printserver. I want to do this with the
least possible user action. Servers are W2K, Clients systems are XP.
Clustering is no option. I'm thinking towards DNS or scripts. Any ideas?

 

[JohnNews]

Andre:

Do a quick searh of this newsgroup for a sender called MARCUS. You may get
some helpful hints.
Here is a reply I sent to Marcus way back then.


*******************************************************************
Marcus:

I will attempt to answer your question based on MY OWN (limited) experience
in the Print Server discipline.

Good idea to setup at least TWO print servers - primary (production) &
secondary (backup).

If you set up your print servers as CLUSTERS then maybe switching over will
work automatically if one print server fails.
But I believe the clustering concept works from Windows 2000 Advance Server
and up.

I prefer a MANUAL switch over if one print server fails. In which case just
disconnect primary from network and rename secondary with the name of
primary. I am assuming at this point that both print servers have identical
print drivers installed.

Once you repair your faulty primary, rename it to the original name of the
secondary.

Let us know how things work out for you, Marcus, keep us posted.

******************************************************************



Thanks,
John

Hi,

I intend to connect the printers for my clients using IPP
and HTTP in future. I want to set up multiple W2K
printservers, on which the printers are configured exactly
the same way. (Same driver, same configuration). I want to
connect the clients with the printers by creating the
connection using the printers webpage.
(http://DNSALIAS/printers). If a server has downtime I
want to change the DNS-Alias and use another printserver.

The problem I have, is that I can connect to the printers
website when I use the Hostname, but not when I use the
DNS Alias. When I try to open the webpage using the DNS-
Alias I receive the following error code.
"An error occured while processing the request; Error
code: 80070034; Hint: ADSI-printer determined (Translated
from German, hope I didn't make to many mistakes.)
(Ein Fehler ist beim Verarbeiten der Anforderung
aufgetreten; Fehlercode: 80070034; Hinweis: ADSI-Drucker
ermittelt.)

Other websites being hosted on this Server can be
addressed by either the Hostname or the DNS-Alias.

If anybody has an idea how to solve this problem I would
appreciate his/her help.

Thanks in advance
Marcus

 

[Guest]

Hello John

Thanks for your response. My user community is < 1000 people. And the solution has to be with the least user impact. My thought was to do it through a DNS alias record. So in the event of a server failure I would have to edit the DNS record only.

The solution with the webpages sounds interesting. Could you further describe your implementation?

Thanks
Andre