Peer-to-Peer Print Server Control for Secure Production Printing
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Solution Overview
Problem
In industrial printing systems, there is a lack of efficient and secure distributed processing methods for production printing that prevent data leakage and human error, especially when multiple printers are involved in producing a final product.
Innovation Solution
An industrial printing system with a prohibition management unit that generates settings to restrict printing and processing on other servers, and a processing management unit that sends jobs with these settings to other servers for secure distributed processing.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Speed
If print data is transferred to each MFP and the MFP itself determines processing capability, then the waiting time for users is reduced and processing speed is improved, but data leakage risks and security issues worsen due to distributed access
Solution Approach 1:
The prohibition management unit generates prohibition settings in advance before job distribution, pre-defining which print servers are prohibited from accessing specific job data. This preliminary restriction prevents data leakage risks before they can occur during distributed processing
Solution Approach 2:
The prohibition setting acts as an intermediary control mechanism between the job data and the print servers. It mediates access permissions by specifying prohibited destinations, thereby controlling data flow and preventing unauthorized access without affecting the overall distributed processing efficiency
2Reliability
If a central management server is used to control distributed processing, then data security is improved, but system complexity and processing overhead worsen
Solution Approach 1:
Each print server autonomously enforces prohibition settings locally without requiring continuous central management server intervention. The prohibition management unit on each server independently determines whether to accept or reject job data based on pre-configured prohibition settings, eliminating the need for complex central coordination
Solution Approach 2:
The centralized management function is segmented and distributed to individual print servers. Each server maintains its own prohibition management unit that independently handles security decisions for its local context, breaking down the complex centralized control into simpler autonomous units
3Reliability
If prohibition settings are generated for each job setting in peer-to-peer processing, then data security is improved by preventing human error, but the complexity of processing management worsens
Solution Approach 1:
Prohibition settings are generated in advance for each job setting before distribution begins. This preliminary configuration ensures that security restrictions are already in place and automatically enforced during processing, preventing human error without requiring complex real-time management interventions
Solution Approach 2:
The system changes the parameter of access control from dynamic central authorization to static pre-configured prohibition settings. By transforming the control mechanism into fixed parameters embedded in each job setting, the system simplifies processing management while maintaining security
Data Source
AI summary
Provided is an industrial printing system that can improve security while performing peer-to-peer distributed processing in production printing. The industrial printing system performs production printing. A plurality of print servers that perform distributed processing of jobs is provided. Each of the plurality of print servers provides a prohibition management unit and a processing management unit. The prohibition management unit generates a prohibition setting that restrict printing and processing on a distributed print server for each job setting. The processing management unit sends the job associated with the prohibition settings generated by the prohibition management unit to the other print server for processing.