White Papers
White Paper Xerox® FreeFlow® Print Server with Adobe® PDF Print Engine
Executive Summary
The print industry is changing rapidly. Customers are developing increasingly complex documents and are consistently demanding shorter turnaround times and greater output consistency. Personalized marketing communications and higher volumes of shorter print runs increase the need for files to come into the print shop ready to print with minimal operator intervention. Both Xerox and Adobe are evolving our solutions to help our customers stay ahead of the crowd and address their emerging production requirements.
Xerox and Adobe have partnered to integrate the Adobe PDF Print Engine into the FreeFlow Digital Workflow Collection including the FreeFlow Print Server. This addresses the needs of today’s print professional by enabling a true end-to-end native Adobe PDF workflow. The FreeFlow Print Server with the new Adobe PDF Print Engine and JDF support drives workflow consistency and flexibility in a number of ways. First, it processes native PDF files without conversion to PostScript, maintaining design integrity without any compromise. It also ensures reliable, consistent printing while keeping the PDF documents themselves device-independent. Because the Adobe PDF Print Engine uses a common renderer for previewing and final output, printers and designers alike can count on reliable oft proofs.
Current Workflow Challenges
There are a number of challenges facing designers and printers today. At the top of the list is ensuring that the designer’s creative intent is easily and reliably produced on a printer. Jobs can include design elements such as transparencies, mixed color spaces and layers, Customer demands for fast turnaround times and an increased number of short run jobs add further complexity to managing the print production process. There is a need for designers as well as printers to have flexibility in their workflow, allowing jobs to be sent to any number of printers as well as make last minute changes to a print file without having to go back to the source application. continue reading...
Third Party Printer Discovery in HP Web Jetadmin
Overview
HP Web Jetadmin has the ability to discover non-HP printers connected to the network via non-HP print server devices. By supporting third party printers, HP offers a network printer management solution that drives an additional step further toward the “one-stop-shopping” concept that LAN administrators desire. LAN administrators will now be able to discover and manage printers offered by all major printer vendors from a single software interface.
Discovery
During discovery of devices, HP Web Jetadmin uses SNMP queries to gather information from the printer and print server device. If HP Web Jetadmin concludes that the device is a peripheral such as a printer, plotter, multi-function device, etc., it will display it in the list of discovered devices. In order for HP Web Jetadmin to conclude that a device is a peripheral, the device must be able to answer a set of basic questions.
A MIB (Management Information Base) is a set of objects that defines the types of SNMP queries that can be asked of a device. For example, the Standard Printer MIB (RFC 1759) is a generic set of objects to which most peripherals should be able to provide answers when queried. The Standard Printer MIB consists of objects that describe functionality and capabilities of the printer such as page counts, media types, etc. Other common MIBs include MIB-II (RFC 1213) and the Host Resources MIB (RFC 1514). continue reading...
Collateral-on-Demand: A Key Driver for Profit and Growth End-to-End Collateral-on-Demand Solutions—from HP Indigo
Collateral production takes on a new look
As a commercial printer, you know well what your customers are demanding for their collateral production. Today, they want shorter, more frequent print runs, the ability to change and update, as well as more customized and versioned pieces. Increasingly, they also demand that collateral be part of an integrated cross-media campaign that involves email, the web and direct mail.
Some market demands, though, will never change. More often than not, customers require the highest possible print quality, accurate color, crisp text, vivid images, and the best finishing options. They also want collateral produced yesterday... and at a competitive price, of course.
Every piece of marketing collateral plays an important communications role, whether it’s a brochure, flyer, business card, stationary proposal or white paper. As with any customer interaction, a company’s collateral informs customer perception.
In order to maintain that all-important brand identity which governs customer loyalty, companies invest heavily in their print collateral—in resources, time and money. In fact, for every dollar spent on printing, an additional five to eight dollars are typically spent on administrative costs, document preparation, creative development, reviews, warehousing and distribution. continue reading...
PCI and Data Security The Prioritized Approach and a Look Ahead
Introduction
The Payment Card Industry (PCI) Security Standards Council™ guides the efforts of Chief Information Security Officers, Compliance Officers, and others who protect cardholder information for payment card issuers, merchants, banks, processors, and service providers. The Council's PCI Data Security Standard (DSS) is a comprehensive set of requirements for security infrastructure, policies, and practices, intended to improve the security of cardholder and account data throughout the industry.
As the PCI Council completes its fifth year of operation, this paper reviews:
• successes and setbacks of the PCI Data Security Standard
• implications of the Council's new Prioritized Approach to DSS
• practical steps professionals can take to improve data security and maintain PCI DSS compliance
• effects of emerging technologies and legislation
This paper is an update and guide, not a tutorial on PCI DSS. Readers new to the standard should consult the excellent materials1 available from the PCI Security Standards Council itself, or one of the many introductory guides available from solution providers.
Compliance and Security
Few doubt that PCI DSS has helped standardize industry security practices and improve data protection. Often cited as a model for industry self-regulation, DSS helps card brands, issuing banks, merchants, and others reduce direct losses from fraud, and risks of reputation loss and litigation from data security breaches. Industry members comply with the standard out of direct financial self-interest, or indirectly to support the interests of powerful partners. DSS has been especially effective at improving security practices on the industry's front lines. In the words of Ellen Richey, Chief Risk Officer for VISA, "More than 90% of the largest card accepting merchants and about 97% of processors in the United States have validated compliance with PCI. The companies that fully embrace it are protecting themselves every day by maintaining their defenses, scanning systems, detecting anomalies and addressing threats."3 continue reading...
Supercharge Booting Servers Directly from a Storage Area Network
Introduction
Traditional servers today use a variety of data storage solutions, including direct attach (DAS), network attach (NAS) and storage area network (SAN). Historically, these servers were configured to boot their operating system from an internal storage device (typically a parallel SCSI hard disk). As organizations implement large-scale data centers, sometimes with thousands of servers, they have sought methods to increase efficiencies through exclusive use of shared storage even for booting. In addition, with the dramatic increase in the use of rack-mount and blade servers, there is a particularly acute need to convert to diskless servers and rely completely on shared storage devices.
This paper discusses the capability of booting servers directly from OS images located on the SAN through a Fibre Channel host bus adapter (HBA) or a Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) converged network adapter (CNA). It describes the Emulex “Boot from SAN” implementation, and how it delivers a markedly enhanced level of manageability and availability, even in heterogeneous computing environments with distinct hardware and operating system requirements. Finally, it describes the four major steps involved in properly configuring a server to “Boot from SAN.”
What is “Boot from SAN”?
“Boot from SAN” has become a de facto description for the capability of servers loading and executing an operating system from a device on the SAN. A SAN provides a common link between multiple servers and storage systems, allowing independent scaling of storage and/or server processing power as requirements demand (see Figure 1).
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