Deployment

Overview

Install your local Control Center and Web Printing to enable the Hybrid mode, where you simultaneously use your Cloud Control Center instance and locally installed Control Center with Web Printing.

The role of Control Center is to define Web Printing users and to host their solution files.

When a Web Printing user logs in to the server, the application (Loftware solution file or label template) runs using the Web Client application on the local workstation.

Typically, Web Printing users print labels that contain variable data. The selected label template takes the provided data and displays the label preview in a printing form. Labels print with the selected data. The data usually originates from a database hosted within the company’s information infrastructure.

Web Client can connect to a database in two different ways:

• The application running in Web Client doesn’t communicate directly with the databases. All communication is channeled through the Web Printing site on the server. When a database record is required, the application sends a request to the Web Printing site, which redirects it to the database server. The response travels in the opposite direction. In the same way, the Web Printing site records print events and stores the data in a database.

• Web Client connects to a local database. This is mandatory when you have a local database that is visible to the Web Client (the database is installed in the same local network as Web Client), but is not visible to the Web Printing site (which cannot connect to the local network).

Installation Scenarios

Depending on the architecture of the solution as well as on the hardware being used, the server components (Loftware Control Center with Web Printing site, and a database server) can all be installed on the same computer or on separate computers.

Installation options depend on a number of factors, such as:

• Can you allow the Web Printing application to be installed as a part of the corporate information infrastructure at all? If the company policy prevents you from any local installation, Web Printing will be hosted outside the company network. In this case, the relevant databases (those which are used for label printing), are copied into the hosted environment.

• Does the company infrastructure support the installation of server components on dedicated servers?

• Who are the Web Printing users that are connecting to the server? Can you trust these users by default (e.g., are they domain users, or company staff) or are they external users connecting to the server using an Internet connection?

• Can the existing database server be used for Web Printing data or do you need to use a new database server?

• Do you plan to allow Web Printing to connect to the company’s main database server? If not, the existing data must be offloaded to a dedicated database server. You will have to make sure the databases are synchronized.

Security Suggestions

This section gives recommendations on how to protect the connecting users and the integrity of data and infrastructure.

You don’t want to reveal any confidential information to unwanted users. With security taken as the highest priority, the application must be reliable and trustworthy, minimizing the risk of security breaches. The Web Printing site encrypts important configuration data on the disk and secures the communication to the application running in the browser.

However, it’s not just how the Web Printing product was developed and tested but also how you install it and place it into action.

Best security practices:

• Regularly install security updates from Microsoft Windows Update. Updates for the IIS are particularly important, because you expose the Web Printing site to the Internet.

• Set up a firewall/proxy. Only open the services/ports which must be opened to the public, such as port 80 for IIS.

• Limit access privileges to the Documents storage in Control Center. This is a WebDAV-based file repository running on the same server as Control Center. It hosts the solution files. By default, anybody can access Documents storage at \\server@8080\DavWWWRoot

• Limit the SQL user permissions. Microsoft SQL Server user account that the Web Printing site will use to connect to the database should have access to the Control Center database (NiceAN by default) only. If somebody gains access to the Microsoft SQL Server, it will be limited to the database, and other parts of the Microsoft SQL Server will not be reachable by this user's privileges.

• Enable user authentication for Control Center. Only allow a login for trustworthy administrative users. By default, anybody that connects has administrative privileges.

• Set up the Web Printing site to be accessible over a secure link only. Enable the HTTPS/SSL protocol so that nobody can eavesdrop on the communication between the user and the server. For more details, see the chapter Installing Web Printing Site with HTTPS/SSL Support.