Hi! I’m studying and it says that it’s better to have a static IP address for a printer when a power outage occurs since the printer can come back up faster with static ip then a dynamic.
Why is static better?
In: Technology
So, with a dynamic ip, your printer or other device will ask a DHCP server to assign it an address. This usually works fine. However, when the power goes out, it may take longer for the DHCP server to come online than the printer. I believe this is what your study material is referring to.
That being said, in real-world terms, this is a tiny consideration compared to reliability. Static IPs *may* also be more reliable, in some cases, simply because you don’t have to rely on a DHCP server to set its ip. *But* it can also lead to problems – for example, if the printer’s static ip falls in the same range as the address pool the DHCP server is assigning from, it may assign another device the same ip address when it fomes back online, before it sees the printer. So if you do assign static ips, you want to make sure they fall outside the pool that the DHCP server is assigning from.
With a dynamic IP address, the process looks something like this:
You tell the computer, “send the print job to the printer”.
The computer says, “ok, I need to find the printer, it might have moved since I talked to it last.”
The computer asks every other device on the network, one by one, “are you the printer?”
The printer says, “Yep, I’m the printer.”
Computer says, “Great, here’s a print job.”
And the printer prints, and everyone’s happy.
With a static IP, you can skip most of that.
You say “send the print job to the printer”, and the computer says, “I know where the printer lives. Printer, here’s a print job”.
It’s not better. It’s a trade off.
If you use static addresses, you have to manage their allocation and that is overhead. If you change your network, you have more devices to manually reconfigure.
If you use dynamic addresses, you have to wait for the dhcp server (and switches) to come up before the printers can get their address.
It is unlikely that the time it takes for the dhcp server to come up is the limiting factor when you are recovering from a power outage. Also, the dhcp server (and switches) is likely to have a UPS.
In my use case, let’s say I have 4 sites with a different IP range at each site. I also have a number of desktop printers, MFPs and let’s say 60 network attached label printers. For me static IPs are cancerous wastes of time. To create a new printer on my print server I can add the printer using its hostname, which is available on the box and then send it where it needs to go, to any site, regardless of IP range. Someone will unbox it, plug it into the network and it will start working.
The key is to correctly link DHCP with DNS, so that when a device IP changes, the server which helps resolve names to IP addresses is also made aware.
Tldr: Static is not better
Latest Answers