printer pool

Printer pooling is a standard feature of Windows NT, 2000, XP, Vista and Windows 7 that allows a group of printers to share the same name and function as if they were one printer.  

Printer pooling is used for load balancing. When an end user puts a print job in the queue, the first available printer is the pool will take the job. 

All the printers in the printer pool must be able to share the same driver, so they need to be the same model. The printers are usually located physically next to each other so the end user knows where to pick up his print job. In the enterprise, printer pools are often used in dedicated print rooms. 

Learn more:

Brian Posey explains how to create a network printer pool

Micrsoft TechNet provides directions for how to create a printer pool.