Moreover, cloud printing can be considered more eco-friendly, as it significantly reduces the amount of paper used and lowers carbon emissions from transportation.
As many companies move their IT to the Cloud, some adopting the Windows 365 and Azure Virtual Desktop services from Microsoft, the connection from the Cloud environment to the on-premise printers become an issue as opening ports for incoming print flow traffic is not an option.
Before 2020 only a handful of providers used to work towards a professional cloud print solution, operating in their own niche or focus on mobile devices.
Google has decided to let third-party developers develop Cloud Print solutions and to limit its scope to certifying the best Print Management offers compatible with its Chrome Enterprise Cloud ecosystem.
In the Full Public Cloud category, independent SaaS vendors like Celiveo,[8] ezeep [9] and Printix [10] support a wide range of printer brands and models, allowing clients to buy the best printer without being locked on any brand.
This also allows IT departments to move printers to VLAN for maximum security, like what they are doing with IP phones.
Industry experts believe that as these services become more popular, users will no longer consider printers as necessary assets but rather as devices that they can access on demand when the need to generate a printed page presents itself.
The only technical solution is to ensure each printer and PC uses a non-self-generated cryptographic token or certificate allowing TLS mutual authentication and specific data encryption.