S 6.105 Contingency planning for printers, copiers, and all-in-one devices

Initiation responsibility: Head of IT, IT Security Officer

Implementation responsibility: Administrator

Long-term failure of a printer, copier, or all-in-one device is usually not acceptable. In particular, the failure of central components necessary for the entire printer infrastructure can lead to significant disruption of the business processes. Depending on the availability requirements, suitable safeguards must be implemented to reduce downtimes and limit the effects of failures.

It must be ensured that there are always enough consumables available, e.g. enough toner and paper. When only a certain amount of the consumable is remaining, new consumables must be purchased and made available for use. You will find more information in safeguard S 2.52 Supply and monitoring of consumables.

Various configuration parameters need to be set on each copier, printer, and also on other components of the printing system. The configurations must be documented systematically in order to be able to set these parameters quickly to their correct values after a failure or after replacing a device (see also S 2.25 Documentation on the system configuration).

The failure of an individual device is all the more serious when there are only a few printers and copiers available. The failure of a print server is especially problematic since there are usually only one or two print servers available.

The reaction to an emergency is different for central components than for copiers. When a higher protection level is required for the availability, a redundant design of the central components such as the print server should be considered. If there is only one central server and it fails, then you may not be able to print documents anywhere in the entire LAN under some circumstances.

Local components such as printers are often found on several floors or in a number of offices in a building. In general, the printer landscape should be designed so that users can easily switch to another printer when one printer fails.

• Consideration should be given to making standby devices available (referred to as "cold standby") for local printers which have a higher protection level in terms of availability and which are connected directly to a workstation. When a printer fails, print operations could be switched quickly from the defective printer to the standby device.
• Maintenance contracts with a reaction time appropriate for the corresponding protection level should be signed for large copiers and for printers used by a number of different people.
• A list of specialised suppliers should be maintained from whom new devices can be purchased quickly and easily.
• If necessary, a store of commonly needed replacement parts can be maintained. Note, however, that this is only reasonable when there is someone in the organization with the technical knowledge required to replace the parts.

Review questions:

• Have appropriate safeguards been taken in order to reduce downtime of printers, copiers and all-in-one devices?
• Are sufficient consumables always available for printers, copiers and all-in-one devices?