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Hi All,
Im looking to set up HA/Cluster printing on Windows servers in Azure, I understand MS have now deprecated Windows printing clustering. Ive reviewed the option to configure the printer spooler service within Windows Clustering which would switch between servers in the spooler job stops on one server.
Is it possible to have the same printer/queue on two separate printers which can be shared to the end user, or is it only possible to share a printer from directly on one server? If server A (primary) goes down users would need to reprint onto server B (secondary)?
Thanks,
Scott
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I have been able to achieve exactly what you are trying to do however with On-premise active / passive print server clustering - would work the same way with a cluster in Azure
Users don't install printer queues for both servers
I'm not using hyper-v HA print solution however changing the Microsoft built in configuration to achieve proper High availability printing I'm using Active / Passive print server clustering with windows server 2022
I am a server engineer for the Government Health department and a print service SME for our entire state, I have a true High availability print solution for Microsoft printing using Microsoft Operating system Out Of Box server tools / services and does not use Hyper-V HA solution as this is Fault Tolerant and still a single point of failure
I'm using Active / passive print server clustering running on Windows Server 2022
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Hello there,
You can make use of High Availability Printing feature.
High Availability Printing feature in Windows Server 2012 and describes how it can make your print servers highly available using Hyper-V virtual machines running as nodes in a cluster.
High Availability Printing, or HA Printing, is the combination of Microsoft Failover Clustering technologies and Hyper-V technologies deployed to make a Windows Server 2012 Print Server highly available.
Hope this resolves your Query !!
--If the reply is helpful, please Upvote and Accept it as an answer--
I know some folks get this working using a load balancer in front of two print servers. Loadbalancer.org has further details. This solution is not supported by Microsoft and never has been so you are on your own to support that configuration. Microsoft only supports the Hyper-V solution which actually works well but does require dedicated hardware . I do not know what types of services Azure supports for this configuration.
I know the technical reasons why a load balancer does not work...
I am not using a load balancer, I am using two standard print servers, one active and one inactive
I have both print servers connected in standard failover
Users are connected to a single name which is redirected to the active node by the failover
The solution I have works perfectly
@carter
Great, I'm glad you got this working. The spooler resource is not clustered just the whole machine correct?
If you were able to cluster the spooler as a Generic service, then something changed on recent Windows versions. I verified on Server 2012 that the spooler could not be used this way.
Thanks
Hi, @Morreis
I do in-fact have the print spooler service as a Generic Service in the failover cluster
The failover cluster handles the ownership of the clustered disk where the spooler directory is moved to
The Failover has an Generic Spooler service, a IP and a pointer computer name in the failover config, all this is moved from one node to another
The Print Spool Service runs off both nodes one active and one passive, the passive Node service is in a stopped state as the failover starts the service on the passive node and shuts down the service on the active node, you can't run active / active and you wouldn't want to and remember you can't load balance
The Generic Service is not a virtual service exactly, it is a handler for the service on the physical nodes in the cluster
I can't post my workflow diagram here but happy to go through the end to end process
All the individual components are MS supported, the end-to-end connection is what we are trying to get under MS support as a HA printing design change
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