Security is something most people feel we should be able to take for granted. If you have a door, there should be a lock. There should be a passcode on your phone. There should be guards watching any area of importance.
Take a second to think about why security should be in place. If you are storing sensitive items or information, you don't want just anyone to take a look, let alone misplace, redistribute, or straight up steal them. You would want measures in place to ensure the people or entities allowed to interact with those valuables can access them in a secure manner. At the same time, you would want those security measures to distance those important things from anybody who has no business accessing them.
Even though security should be expected, most people don't take more than a second or two to think about it, especially in the workplace. Workplace security is incredibly malleable and can take many different forms. But regardless of its form, security is a non-negotiable and strong security is a no brainer.
That's why the LRS/Gateway component is so important in a conversation about security. LRS/Gateway acts – as you might have guessed – as a gateway between the LRS product suite and an identity provider such as Active Directory, Azure Active Directory and OpenID Connect. This means that actions such as user authentication are checked to see if they come from a trusted entity before accessing our products.
Take, for example, OpenID Connect. The OpenID Connect provider can come from a handful of security providers including OKTA, PingID, etc. Once a successful connection is made, the OpenID Connect provider returns an ID token that has information about a user like their name, username, email, etc. LRS/Gateway will take and use that information for things such as authorization and assigning usernames to jobs.
That may sound like a hassle and a half to implement, but the LRS software was built with this task in mind. Ensuring that not only printing and scanning are implemented smoothly in a new environment, but security as well, is a no brainer. LRS/Gateway sets the stage for both security and efficiency across an entire print environment. This includes support for high availability with load balancers such as F5 and Netscaler Citrix, ensuring a print environment runs at its full potential.
Think of LRS/Gateway as the bouncer to a club. If you're not on the list, it's not letting you in. So, if you want access to where things are happening, now's the time to start making some connections.