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<p>Back in 2020, PaperCut released <a href="https://staging.selectec.com/papercut-20-0/">version 20.0 of PaperCut MF</a>. This update introduced "Automatic Application Server failover"; a new in-app solution to protect the PaperCut Application Server Layer, where clustering or virtualisation technologies cannot provide failover. To do this, you need a Network Load Balancer (hardware or a virtual appliance) to provide automatic failover at the PaperCut MF Application Server layer.</p>
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<h3 class="has-text-align-left">Wondering what a Network Load Balancer (NLB) is?</h3>
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<p>Millions of them are used every day to ensure data access is fast, easy and available. They keep business and services operational 24/7 by balancing network requests between users and servers. Zero downtime, redundancy, security, scalability, high availability - those buzzwords are delivered by the implementation of a NLB.&nbsp;</p>
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<p>NLB's provide two easy to identify opportunities for partners.</p>
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<ol><li>You can now approach any high-end opportunities requiring load balancer support for PaperCut with confidence.</li><li>You can identify past customers who may wish to take advantage of this new (to PaperCut!) technology.</li></ol>
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<p>What's in it for the customer other than that magic 99% uptime, peace of mind and a new toy to play with? Eeeek, you got me, but I think those are good enough reasons for anyone.</p>
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<h3 class="has-text-align-left">Sounds complicated</h3>
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<p>You don't need to be an expert in all things load balancing within PaperCut to see the benefit to the customer (and the upsell opportunity for partners). Terms like NLB, LB, DNS, WAF, Layer 4, Layer 7, HA Proxy, DR, GSLB, TWRR are alien to most mortals, but if they crop up on a PaperCut tender you can answer with a high degree of confidence. Don't sweat it if you don't know your LACP from your VLAN, we have a team of people that use specific coloured network cables based on what they are being used for here to help, so you are in safe hands.&nbsp;</p>
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<p><em>(please note, I personally just go for whatever cable is cheapest off of Amazon, but that is why they don't let me near proper networks.)&nbsp;</em></p>
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<h3 class="has-text-align-left">What would you need to take advantage of this feature?</h3>
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<p>To get started, there are a few requirements listed below:</p>
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<ul><li>PaperCut version 20 or higher</li><li>A Layer 4 capable Network Load Balancer from us</li><li>Two or more servers (these can be virtual or physical)</li><li>A highly available external database&nbsp;</li><li>A network drive accessible by all servers</li></ul>
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<p>The really good news is that load balancing supports multiple external components such as Secondary/Site Servers, embedded devices, user clients and more.</p>
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<h3 class="has-text-align-left">How does this impact the PaperCut license?</h3>
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<p>It is important to note here that while you have multiple servers, this does not impact licensing; you still only need one license. Both servers are running simultaneously, but only one is active... the other is passive, waiting for the server that is currently active to fail and jump in to save the day. There is no "main server" here, it's the first to get up and high five the PaperCut database and grab its attention - you and your users won't notice what server is up as all the connections are done via the NLB.</p>
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<h3 class="has-text-align-left">Is a NLB for everyone?</h3>
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<p>It depends. There are certainly other options such as</p>
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<p>Clustering, VM Snapshots, VM Replication, MS Hyper-V, VMWare, Veeam etc., and none of those are evil - if the customer is happy to keep doing what they are doing, then all is good. The introduction of NLB support is just an alternative solution to protect the PaperCut Application Server Layer, maximising server uptime and providing self-healing in the event of an application-level failure.</p>
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<h4 class="has-text-align-left">Want to know a bit more? </h4>
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<p>Step one: reach out to our <a target="_blank" href="mailto:ps@selectec.com" rel="noreferrer noopener">ps@selectec.com</a> team for a chat, and step two: take a look around the learning portal and have a look at the resources for the High Availability Certification.</p>
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<p>While the SMB world is looking up at the clouds (see <a href="/products/papercut-hive/">PaperCut Hive</a>), on-prem solutions are here to stay, and system administrators want their setups to be as stable and resilient as possible. Not unreasonable, huh?</p>
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