MPS Monitor®, the company that develops and distributes the leading SaaS platform for the remote monitoring and management of printers and multifunctional devices, today announced the immediate availability of its new Data Collection Agent (DCA) version 4. The latest version brings a wealth of innovative and revolutionary features that are, in most cases, first to the market. Dealers and Managed Print Services providers can now benefit from instant, real-time access to devices, further integration with other market-leading solutions, and increased support and security.
DCA 4 is a complete redesign and rework of the award-winning MPS Monitor DCA. Over the last 12 years, it has been installed in more than half a million customer networks and is currently used by thousands of dealers to manage more than 1.2 million printing devices across 60 countries. To remain at the forefront of technology and provide further advanced and unique features to its customers, MPS Monitor decided on a clean-sheet redesign, using the latest IoT protocols and development environments. The new Data Collection Agent development, which took more than three years, involved a full-time and dedicated core development team.
As a result of this substantial effort, DCA 4 provides new and compelling features and functionalities, which are designed to revolutionize the way dealers and MPS providers remotely manage their print fleet:
Real-time connection: By using MQTT, one of the most modern IoT messaging protocols, DCA 4 allows direct, real-time communication between the user, the Agent, and the devices. The Agent also uses HTTP/2 – GRPC for traffic optimization and SSH for remote device access.
Device Web Access: Dealers, MPS Providers, and fleet managers can access and navigate the devices’ web pages from their browser while being located anywhere on the Internet, without the need for a remote connection to the customer’s network. The printer’s web server pages will appear in the MPS Monitor Portal’s device page in a matter of seconds, simply by clicking on a button. This feature is active on all printer brands and models. It does not require any additional access or software, and it has been thoroughly tested and certified to ensure it is highly secure.
Multi-platform: DCA 4 uses a single code base for all leading platforms (Windows, Mac, Linux, Raspberry), providing the same feature set and functions, regardless of the platform’s OS. Device Web Access and other new features are available on all platforms without any difference.
Granular data collection: it is now possible to define, for each different type of data (meters, consumable levels, alerts, messages, etc.), how often each type has to be updated. Only changed data are sent to the cloud to increase the system’s efficiency and ensure real-time data management.
Optimised network discovery: a complete redesign of the discovery process allows improved stability and efficiency, while greatly simplifying the troubleshooting process in critical network environments.
Improved security: DCA 4 is built with a strict “security-by-design” approach, further mitigating the risk that the DCA could be used as an attack vector to the customer’s network. It also fully supports SNMP v3 and device authentication, to ensure maximum device security.
Better supportability: in scenarios where problems with a device’s data have been identified, MPS Monitor’s support team already has available in the system all the information needed to troubleshoot reading issues like wrong meters or levels. There’s no need anymore to contact the customer and ask for remote sessions or manual data extraction for troubleshooting purposes, bringing added convenience and speeding up problem resolution.
PaperCut integration: as previously announced, customers where a DCA 4 and a PaperCut MF/NG instance are present, can enjoy a full Business Intelligence experience on their PaperCut data from within the MPS Monitor cloud Portal, without any additional software installation nor any additional license costs.
All the above features are available immediately to all MPS Monitor users by simply installing the new DCA 4 on the network where printers are connected. DCA 4 can co-exist with the previous version 3 of the DCA – even on the same system – and all the advanced features present in version 3 are supported in DCA 4 as well. This includes the exclusive DCA Clustering feature, which minimizes downtime and ensures data collection continuity.
Current MPS Monitor users can download DCA 4 using their MPS Monitor cloud Portal accounts, while Dealers and MPS providers interested in adopting MPS Monitor and testing DCA 4 can get a free trial of the platform from Oberon Americas.
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About Oberon Americas
Oberon Americas is the exclusive provider of our IoT-Cloud Based MPS Platform powered by MPS Monitor for the Americas region, offering to dealers, OEM’s, Toner Manufacturers, Resellers and Fortune 500 companies the most reliable, flexible, and secure Next Generation Managed Print Cloud Platforms for all your printing services. Our team is building the Internet of Printers® 2030, with the most comprehensive middleware platform which helps print dealers and OEM’s monitor and monetize 100% of their machines in the field.
www.OberonAmericas.com info@OberonAmericas.com
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About MPS Monitor
With more than 1,000,000 printing devices and 30 billion pages monitored each year on over 150,000 end users, MPS Monitor is one of the major IoT software solutions globally for monitoring printing devices and the provision of Managed Print Services. MPS Monitor provides a comprehensive SaaS platform for monitoring and managing printers, available on the cloud, and equipped with a full set of APIs for integrating external software solutions. Its highly scalable and high-performing data collection technology allows Dealers/VARs, large end-users, manufacturers, and retailers of printer consumables to satisfy any need associated with the management of printing devices, recording of page volumes, and supply of toner in an automatic and controlled way. The MPS Monitor Cloud service is managed within an ISO/IEC 27001:2014 certified Information Security Management System and guarantees full compliance with the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Recently, MPS Monitor successfully completed the System and Organization Controls 2 Type 1 (SOC 2 Type 1) audit. The company has collaborations with key technology industry leaders, including Microsoft, HP, Okta, Asolvi and Zebra Technologies, while some of the industry’s most respected organisations – including IDC, Quocirca and Keypoint Intelligence – have endorsed MPS Monitor’s solutions. In addition to its founding office in Milan, Italy, MPS Monitor has a presence in the UK, from where it is spearheading its global expansion plans.
The latest release from “Quocirca’s Global Print Security Landscape 2022” report reveals that many organizations struggle to keep up with print security demands in today’s hybrid work environment.
Organizations need to look at investing and ensuring that the print environment is secured to the same levels expected across any other area of the IT platform.
We at Oberon Americas, as MPS Monitor providers for the Americas Region, are excited to cite a paragraph from this report:
“MPS Monitor adopts a holistic approach to the security of the entire print environment. The platform offers a robust set of security features and capabilities to protect data, user accounts, and infrastructure; provide device security services to end customers, enable cloud print services through a secure cloud-like Microsoft Azure, as well as remote monitoring without a DCA.”
For more, we invite you to read the report Quocirca-Print-Security-2022-Report
Please note that this is a report excerpt. The full report is available at https://quocirca.com/print-security-2022.