Case Study: State Government Agency
Partnership with Ricoh and IBM enables business continuity and modernization for state agency between its mainframe and print fleet
About our Customer
This government institution is an important part of our nation and aims to serve its constituents by providing programs and services as well as overseeing all related government agencies. As with many government organizations, the state creates, handles and prints a high volume of documents, records, forms and other communications on a fleet of printers located across the state. By the time they got to know Ricoh, the state was ready to modernize and automate its processes and print output management. Specifically, the state’s Office of Information & Technology (OIT) needed a way to connect a Mainframe-as-a-Service (MFaaS) initiative to the entire fleet of state-wide printers, while minimizing change to the existing Job Entry Sub-system (JES) print queues on the IBM z/OS mainframe.
“We are thrilled with the Ricoh team, the InfoPrint Manager product, and the overall solution!”
— IT Director, State Government
Challenge
Legacy IBM mainframe environment used for print output management
Over 900 printers state-wide, which required skilled programmers to print from the mainframe
Desired a solution to connect the legacy system with the printer network
The state had used an IBM z/OS mainframe infrastructure for years, which was connected to its large printing fleet. Printing documents was difficult because it required programmers and even end users to work with the IBM JES mainframe environment to print. The state knew they wanted to modernize their applications and needed a tool to work with their existing on-premises fleet and bridge the gap between the mainframe and the printers. The existing IBM mainframe definitions and applications had to be preserved, while also enabling more modern applications. The state turned to IBM to outsource a Mainframe as a Service (MFaaS) and Ricoh to create the bridge and modernize the print output management process. IBM recommended Ricoh, a longtime strategic partner of IBM, as the solution provider that would be best suited to help connect their existing JES print queues, with their statewide fleet of printers while maintaining local on-premises control.
Solution
“We underwent an extensive trial with Ricoh, which demonstrated their impressive product and team capabilities. This is a great team to work with, and they stay on top of things until the work is done.”
— IT Director, State Government
Trial proof-of-concept solution confirmed Ricoh’s product and team capabilities
Deployed RICOH InfoPrint Manager
Professional services
After a long discovery period, the Ricoh team implemented the InfoPrint Manager (IPM) as the “glue” that connects the IBM mainframe with the printers. IPM is a centralized and scalable print output management solution that drives communication across multiple environments, locations and data streams. It also manages print queues and jobs through a single interface enterprise-wide, with options for secured communications with encrypted data protection and authenticated printing. In short, IPM supports 100% of the current JES-based printing jobs, while also enabling the state end-users to use more modern applications to print to the same printers.
“We underwent an extensive trial with Ricoh, which demonstrated their impressive product and team capabilities. This is a great team to work with, and they stay on top of things until the work is done,” said the IT Director.
Behind the scenes, the strategic Ricoh and IBM partnership further solidified the process of connecting the IBM mainframe with more than 900 printers. Ricoh supports and staffs the IBM helpdesk for their environment, so the solution came together seamlessly for the state. In conjunction with Ricoh’s implementation of InfoPrint Manager, IBM was able to stabilize its servers as part of the modernization effort and can now virtualize the state’s IBM JES environment via MFaaS.
The state has a variety of brands and types of printers, so having a solution that could bridge the assorted connections was critical to the project’s success. Most importantly, IPM enabled anyone with print access to easily route print jobs without having to go to specialized programmers for different types of jobs. This is more sustainable for the future and eliminates the headache of finding resources that know how to operate legacy mainframe applications.
Results
Continuity of operations while adding modern capabilities for infrastructure support
Huge cost savings from simplifying the printing process
Reduced the need to hire specialized resources
Conversion to PDF, enabling multi-channel delivery
With such a large fleet of printers, OIT began the process of migrating printers to the new environment in groups. Due to the pandemic and other interruptions, Ricoh and the state had to be flexible: some printers no longer existed, while others needed maintenance. Through it all, steady progress was made and IPM is now driving the entire fleet for the state.
Ongoing adjustments to the new environment are delivering continual improvement. Most exciting is that while the first few months have been focused on the continuity of operations, the infrastructure has created new ways to easily connect to the printers, especially from local Word documents, PDF files and other applications. IPM has simplified printing both legacy JES-based work and newer PDF output to the existing printers — while also offering many modernizations, such as the conversion of legacy application data into PDF files for end users.
“Ricoh provided an essential service for us. We needed to make our sizable printer fleet work easily and quickly. The end result not only gave us huge cost-savings, but our staff is more productive,” said the IT Director. “We are thrilled with the Ricoh team, the InfoPrint Manager product, and the overall solution!”
Looking towards the future, the state is already considering other ways to optimize the partnership with Ricoh with a digital mailroom solution.
Learn more about Ricoh’s InfoPrint Manager or how to ensure operational continuity.