Printers

We are currently recommending only HP Laserjet Enterprise Printers for the following reasons:

• Consistent Firmware updates to deal with Security Issues
• Network Firewall for Public IP Use
• Available from the UC Gateway system through CDW-G or Gov Connection.

Why not <brand> printer?

We have found that some of the non-business brand printers are not designed for use within the Campus Network as it is right now.

Office of Information Technology has reported vulnerabilities or issues with Brother, Dell and other low cost printers, mostly due to those printers were designed for Home use or the printer was designed to be replaced within a 2 year period of time. If the home use printer in question does not come with a firewall or other method of restricting access it can be used to launch man-in-the-middle or denial-of-service attacks and cannot be connected to any campus network.

We also do not recommend the HP P-Series or OfficeJet series printers as they are also meant for home use.

Xerox and Canon do have printers that come with firewalls, but only for their largest, "work-group" printers designed for use by 50+ people. Smaller "home" models do not come with firewalls or even any security in some cases.

What do you mean by Home use?

Home use printers are basically printers that aren't expecting a lot of use.

Often it is:

• Printing only a few pages a week (at most 20 pages)
• Going to be connected to a computer (Not really shared)
• Being on a home network (Not on a Public Network, which is what UCSB is mostly on)
• Small office use (Such as a 3 or 4 person at most office use)

Home use printers are also often cheap as the plan is for it to be replaced in a couple of years.

What about large printer rentals for large departments?

While renting a printer from a reliable supplier can be an option, please note:

• The cheapest Canon and Xerox printers that come with firewalls are generally over a thousand dollars, which means support/rental contracts with them are correspondingly expensive
  • Printers designed for 50+ people are not generally economical for small groups
  • Toner and parts do go bad over time so even pay per page contracts can generate large bills long term.
• The smallest Canon and Xerox printers that come with firewalls can be over 2 feet (0.6 meter) per side
• Support/rental agreements are ongoing expenses over multiple years and may cause issues long term if your funding is year to year.
• Many "work-group" printers are not designed to be maintained or updated by anyone other than trained technicians with access to internal security such as keys/passwords that are not given to the public.

When requesting for a printer

We will need to know some of the particulars you will need:

• Personal or Shared Printer
• Duplexing (Printing on both sides) needed
• Expected work load (pages printed in a month)
• Black and White or Color
• Networked or not
• Other needs (Like Scanning/Copying/FAX)