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DATA COLLECTION
44
Finger on the Pulse
On April 24-25, the PrintFleet
Connecting the Data
roadshow
hit London’s South Bank. With
presentations from Perform IT
and Samsung and an informative
roundtable discussion, vendors,
distributors and resellers learnt how
PrintFleet solutions can help deliver
MPS more efficiently and cost-
effectively.
Top billing went to PrintFleet’s new
DCA Pulse data collection agent. The
product of three years’ development,
this new generation DCA addresses the
shortcomings of existing solutions and
seeks to overcome hurdles created by the
vendors themselves.
DCA Pulse is a core component of the
PrintFleet solution, working in conjunction
with PrintFleet Central and PrintFleet
Optimizer to collect, manage and report on
organisations’ printer usage.
PrintFleet CTO Gordon Reilly said that in
redesigning the DCA concept, PrintFleet was
reducing service delivery costs for resellers,
facilitating the transition from device
monitoring to device management and
moving from historical to predictive data.
He pointed out that PrintFleet DCAs
used to be ‘monolithic’; you installed the
software and then any change required an
update and a new DCA installation. Pulse
is much more flexible.
“DCA Pulse still has the scan engine on
the customer site, but it is tuned into back-
end pieces that are dynamically produced
through a central cloud repository. If the
firmware is updated or a new device
comes out, we can update files in the
central cloud architecture. These are then
pulled down to the DCA in real-time so
you are always working with the latest
information,” he said.
“Also, rather than an interrogative
approach of asking a series of questions
to a device regardless of the device, Pulse
identifies the make and model of a device
and then goes back to the central piece
and pulls down information relevant for
each make and model in the system.”
Model Definition Files
These so-called Model Definition Files are
created from manufacturer specifications
and provide DCA Pulse with the
manufacturer and model information
needed to collect data on meters, supplies
and device attributes.
Compiling this data has always been
a challenge due to the wide variation
in the way data points are labelled by
manufacturers, which can also change by
region. Now, when PrintFleet compiles
Model Definition Files, it categorises each
type of data with a standard definition
model so that it can map and compare
data using a standard nomenclature.
Reilly said the use of MDFs also lets
PrintFleet manage a broader range of
devices than just A4 and A3 machines, such
as wide format printers. Having the ability
to specify information that’s important
to different form factors, for example to
provide more information about supplies
and errors and less on page counts, opens
the door to managing new types of device.
“With Pulse and the creation of Model
Definition Files we have a significantly
better method for managing the diversity of
the device population out there,” he said.
Time-savers
DCA Pulse also boasts enhancement
designed to save time and streamline data
collection, including:
n
Differential Transmission;
this
reduces processing time by only sending
data that has changed or values that have
been updated to PrintFleet Optimizer; and
n
Custom Scan Intervals,
which let you
set independent scan intervals for device
discovery, meters, supplies, errors and
attributes.
“Before data collection was done in
one sweep and it would do everything,
but with Pulse you can set different scan
cycles. You don’t have to read the meter
every hour – you can set it to do it once a
day or twice a day. You may want to scan
supplies info more frequently than print
data, say, and read device errors and alerts
even more quickly,” explained Reilly. “With
Pulse, you can scan on a cycle of minutes
so the information is more current and you
can break data collection into individual
pieces, which has a major effect on
business issues – if you control frequency
you can control the quality and precision of
the data collected.”
Reilly pointed out that with Pulse,
results are delivered more quickly too.
“With the old method, the scan would run
to completion and then you would get the
results. With Pulse, scans run independently
and as soon as the scan is done you get
the results. You don’t have to wait for all to
PrintFleet’s new generation DCA brings new opportunities
to resellers
finish before you get the results of
the one you want.”
Cross-platform
Other developments lower maintenance
and deployment costs. For example, while
the DCA has historically been Windows-
only, DCA Pulse is compatible with Linux,
Ubuntu, Debian, MacOSX and Raspberry
Pi. A low-cost, plug and play computer
about the size of a mobile phone, the
Raspberry Pi lets you do a very low cost
DCA deployment in small and medium-
sized businesses.
Remote configuration reduces the
number of engineer visits required, as
does a Heartbeat function that enables
PrintFleet Central to see that the DCA
Pulse is still operating, even if there has
been a firewall change that affects its
ability to communicate.
PrintFleet Optimizer
In addition, PrintFleet has made a number
of changes to the reporting function in
PrintFleet Optimizer, notably an Estimated
Days to Empty (EDTE) feature, which
converts toner level percentage figures into
days remaining before the toner runs out.
PrintFleet urged resellers not to
overlook the sales value of Optimizer
reports that can identify managed vs
unmanaged machines; volume by brand;
age of devices; power consumption per
device, per month; inactive devices with
less than 200 pages per month; new
devices detected in last 30 days; and toner
and ink coverage per device.
The ability to combine different reports
into one executive document with branding
on the first and last pages is too good a
sales opportunity to miss.
With Pulse
and the
creation
of Model
Definition
Files we
have a
significantly
better
method for
managing
the diversity
of the
device
population
out there
1.866.382.8320 |
DCA PULSE
PrintFleet’s next generation data collection agent
PRINTFLEET :
DCA Pulse
