JP2000181848A - Integrated management method and device therefor - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To integrate and manage systems which use different managing methods and data formats by converting pieces of information obtained from respective modeled managing devices to an integrated common format and gathering them. SOLUTION: A common interface module 11 sends a process request to interface models 21 by charging systems according to a request made by the integrating and managing device. A module 12 is equipped with a common interface part 15, an interface conversion part 16 having an object model conversion part 16 which performs abstraction to an object and an information conversion part 18, and a charging system control part 19 which sends and receives information to and from a charging system as an object 13 of management. The abstracted management object 13 corresponds to a managing device and equipment 14 corresponds to a copying machine or printer which is controlled by it.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an integrated management method and apparatus, and more particularly, to an integrated management method and apparatus capable of integrating and managing a plurality of independently designed systems.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, there are various types of systems for managing the state of equipment using a computer or the like. For example, in a system that manages charging for a copier, a printer, and the like, the management device 121 connected to the LAN 110 as in the system A 102 shown in FIG.
14 to obtain various types of information from the printers 122-1 through 122-3 via the printer 10 to perform accounting management.
15 in which the management apparatus 131 acquires various states from the copiers 132-1 to 132-3 via the exchange 133 and the telephone lines 134-1 to 134-3 as in the system B103 shown in FIG. System C104 shown in
Management device 14 directly connected to the printer 142 as shown in FIG.
There is a form in which the printer 1 controls charging of the printer 142.

On the other hand, recently, with the development of network technology, a great deal of information has been acquired using a network.
The systems to be managed are also increasing. However, the various types of systems described above are usually designed independently, and since the management methods and data formats are different, it is difficult to integrate and manage them using a network. Was.

Techniques for sharing information between such different systems and integrating the systems are described in "Information Network Management Method" described in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 6-348631 and Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 7-321885. "Network management system" described in Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. Hei 10-2947
No. 31, "Network operation management system, management manager, management console, storage medium, and network operation management method" are proposed.

[0005] However, all of them can only perform protocol conversion between different networks, obtain network configuration information, and the like, and obtain billing information and other information of each device in the network (system). Not something that can be done.

[0006]

As described above, in various systems such as a billing management system, different management methods and data formats are used for each system.
It was difficult to manage them in an integrated manner.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION It is an object of the present invention to provide an integrated management method and apparatus capable of integrally managing a plurality of systems using different management methods and data formats.

[0008]

In order to achieve the above object, according to the first aspect of the present invention, there is provided an integrated management method for integrally managing a plurality of processing systems for processing information in different methods and data formats. The processing system is modeled into at least one device in the processing system and a management device that manages the device, and information obtained from each of the modeled management devices is converted into a unified common format and collected. It is characterized by the following.

According to a second aspect of the present invention, in the first aspect of the present invention, the information obtained from each of the management devices is based on a table in which a relationship between a format output by the management device and the common format is set. Is converted.

According to a third aspect of the present invention, in the first aspect of the present invention, the processing system is a charging system for managing charging information of the image forming apparatus, and the model includes a charging management apparatus of the charging system. The image forming apparatus is managed by the charging management apparatus.

According to a fourth aspect of the present invention, in the third aspect of the present invention, the charging management device is connected to a network and acquires the charging information via the network.

According to a fifth aspect of the present invention, in the third aspect of the invention, the accounting information is obtained via a recording medium.

According to a sixth aspect of the present invention, there is provided an integrated management apparatus for integrally managing a plurality of processing systems for processing information in different methods and data formats, wherein each of the processing systems includes at least one of the processing systems.
Modeling means for modeling the two devices and a management device for managing the devices, and information conversion means for converting information obtained from each of the models modeled by the modeling means into a unified common format. It is characterized by having.

According to a seventh aspect of the present invention, in the sixth aspect of the present invention, the information conversion means includes a table in which a relationship between the format output by the management device and the common format is set, and The information obtained from each of the above is converted based on the table.

According to an eighth aspect of the present invention, in the sixth aspect of the present invention, the processing system is a billing system for managing billing information of the image forming apparatus, and the model comprises a billing management device of the billing system. The image forming apparatus is managed by the charging management apparatus.

According to a ninth aspect of the present invention, in the invention of the eighth aspect, the charging management device is connected to a network, and the information conversion means converts the charging information obtained via the network into the common format. It is characterized by conversion.

According to a tenth aspect of the present invention, in the eighth aspect of the invention, the information conversion means converts the accounting information obtained via a recording medium into the common format.

[0018]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS One embodiment of the integrated management method and apparatus according to the present invention will be described below in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a configuration of an integrated charging network system adopting the present invention. As shown in the figure, the integrated charging management system is an integrated management device 1.
And system A2, system B3, and system C4. The system A2 is a system in which the management device 21 connected to the LAN 10 manages the accounting information of the printers 22-1 to 22-3. The system B3 is such that the management device 31 uses the exchange 33 and the telephone lines 34-1 to 34-3. A system B4 is a system that acquires and manages accounting information of the copying machines 32-1 through 32-3 through a management device 41 directly connected to the printer 42 and manages accounting information of the printer 42. It is similar to the system.
Note that the printers and copiers connected to each system may be these multifunction peripherals or the like, or different types of devices may be mixed.

The integrated management device 1 acquires the accounting information collected by the management devices 21 and 31 via the LAN 10, and acquires the accounting information collected by the management device 41 off-line via a recording medium or the like. .

By the way, system A2 and system B3,
The system C4 handles billing information in different data formats. Therefore, the management device 2
The billing information output by 1, 31, and 41 is also different from each other.

Therefore, in the integrated charging management system, the structure of the charging system to be integrated is abstracted, and is treated as four objects of “common interface module, interface module for each charging system, management target, and device”. Handling is possible.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing the configuration of each object for implementing integrated management. The common interface module 11 issues a processing request to the charging management system-specific interface module 12 in accordance with a request from the integrated management device 1.

The interface module 12 for each charging system includes a charging management system (system A2, system B
3, the system C4, etc.) to be managed 13 and devices 14
Is a module that performs abstraction on the two objects and converts information between the integrated management device 1 and the charging management system (system A2, system B3, system C4, etc.) as necessary. 11, a common interface unit 12 that exchanges information with the object unit 11, an object model conversion unit 17 that abstracts objects, and an information conversion unit 1 that converts information.
8 and a charging system control unit 19 for exchanging information and the like with the charging system that is the management target 13.

Also, the abstracted management object 13 is shown in FIG.
Correspond to the management devices 21, 31, 41 shown in FIG.
Are the printers 22-1 to 22-3 managed by them,
It corresponds to the copying machines 32-1 to 32-3 and the printer 42.

The abstraction into objects is performed by using a database as a management target 13 and another client as a device 14, or performing distributed management even in a system having no management device such as a system including a database and a client. In such a system, it is possible to handle a plurality of management devices as one management target 13, or to set a parent management device of a dual-managed system as a management target 13, and so on. Can be handled in the same way even if there is a system.

In the configuration shown in FIG. 2, when performing information registration processing and information collection processing from the integrated management apparatus 1 to the management target 13 such as the system A2, a processing request is sent from the common interface module 11 to the accounting system. The data is sent to the interface module 12, where the data format is converted if necessary, and sent to the management target 13. Also,
Management target 1 according to information collection processing from integrated management device 1
3 returns the collected information, the information is sent from the management target 13 to the interface module 12 for each charging system, where the data format is converted if necessary, and the common interface module 11 To the integrated management device 1 via

The conversion of data format and information in the interface module 12 for each billing system is performed using a mapping table. For example, when the integrated management apparatus 1 manages information about a user, the information is managed in the data format of the user table information 51 shown in FIG. 3, but the information is managed in a format different from this data format. Management system (System A2, System B
3, system C4) is converted based on the user mapping table 52. Necessary information is registered in the user mapping table 52 in advance.
Is common to the user information table 51 and the user mapping table 52.

Similarly, regarding the department information, the department information table 53 is converted into the data format by the department mapping table 54, and the device information table 55 is converted into the data format by the device mapping table 56.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing an example of the user information table 51 and the user mapping table 52. The user information table 51 associates a user name with a user name and its contact information as shown in FIG.
The user is identified by the user ID. In the user mapping table 52, information for unifying information of a user managed with an identifier different for each charging management system into a common user ID is registered. In the case of the example shown in FIG. The user registered with the user ID “001” is “Domain @ u” in the system A2.
"ser1", and in the system C4, "user
"1" indicates that charge management is being performed. Therefore, a plurality of pieces of information relating to the same user ID are registered in the user mapping table 52 (because they are managed with different identifiers for each charging management system).

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing an example of the department information table 53 and the department mapping table 54. The department information table 53 identifies a department by a department ID by associating a department name with a department name with a department ID as shown in FIG. Department mapping table 54
Has registered therein information for unifying information of each department managed by a different identifier for each charging management system into a common department ID. In the example shown in FIG. 5B,
The department (first development department) registered with the department ID “001” is identified by “FX_ODP” in the system A2 and is identified by “04” in the system B3 to indicate that the accounting is managed. Therefore, a plurality of pieces of information about the same department ID are registered in the department mapping table 54.

FIG. 6 is a diagram showing an example of the device information table 55 and the device mapping table 56. The device information table 55 associates the device ID with the device name and its model as shown in FIG.
D. Device mapping table 56
Is registered with information for managing information of each device managed by an identifier of a different format for each charging management system with a common device ID. In the example shown in FIG. The device registered with the device ID “002” is identified by “051” in the system B3. In the device mapping table 56, unlike the above-described user mapping table 52 and department mapping table 54, the same device ID is not registered. In other words, in the case of a device, the device ID and the actual device are associated one-to-one.

Next, an example of collecting management information will be described. 7 to 9 show a system A2 and a system B, respectively.
3 is a table showing data output from the system C4 and their mapping. As shown in FIGS. 7 to 9, each system (system A2, system B3, system C
The data output from 4) is different. For example, in the data output from the system A2 (the management apparatus 21), the data mapped to the “start time” is “199” of the item “StartPrintingTime”.
8: 1: 1: 12: 31: 50 ", including the date and time. On the other hand, the system B3 (the management device 3)
In the data output from 1), the item "time stamp"
"98/01/01/0/0/0" contains the date and time, but there is a difference in the notation, and this item "time stamp" is also mapped to the end date and time.
In the data output from the system C4 (management device 41), the item “Date” is “1997/10/6”.
And "10: 26: 46A" of the item "StartTime"
M ”are mapped to“ start date and time ”.

When information managed in a different format in each system is converted into a format managed by the integrated management device 1, the results are as shown in FIGS. For example, regarding the “start time” described above, the data of the system A2 (management device 21) is “199” as shown in FIG.
80101123150 ", the data of the system B3 (management device 31) is" 19801010100000 "
The data of the system C4 (the management device 41) is "199
80101102646 "respectively.

When the management information shown in FIG. 10 is mapped by the mapping tables (user mapping table 52, department mapping table 54, device mapping table 56) shown in FIGS. 4 to 6,
As shown in FIG. 12, a device ID, a user ID, and a department ID can be added, and processing such as aggregation can be performed in an integrated manner by using this ID.

In this embodiment, the integrated management device 1
Collects the charging information of the system A2 and the system B3 via the LAN 10 and collects the charging information of the system C4 offline, but these may be in any form.
All systems may be connected by LAN, and the same is true even if all systems are offline.

Even if the system managed by the integrated management apparatus 1 is not for billing management, it can be handled as billing information by mapping other management information such as job execution.

Further, when another system is newly added to the integrated charging network system shown in FIG.
It is only necessary to prepare an interface module for each charging system (including each mapping table) according to the system to be added, whereby the integrated management device 1 can perform charging management.

[0039]

As described above, according to the present invention, the management target is treated as an abstracted object model, and the management information is converted into a common format and acquired. Multiple systems of different formats can be integrated and managed.

Further, since information identified by a different identifier for each system to be managed is converted into a common ID and handled, each piece of information can be centrally managed.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of an integrated charging network system employing the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing a configuration of each object for realizing integrated management.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing table information and a mapping table.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing an example of a user information table 51 and a user mapping table 52.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing an example of a department information table 53 and a department mapping table 54.

FIG. 6 is a diagram showing an example of a device information table 55 and a device mapping table 56.

FIG. 7 is a diagram showing an example of data output by a system A2.

FIG. 8 is a diagram showing an example of data output by a system B3.

FIG. 9 is a diagram showing an example of data output by a system C4.

FIG. 10 is a diagram (1) showing an example of converted data.

FIG. 11 is a diagram (2) illustrating an example of converted data.

FIG. 12 is a diagram showing an example of data after mapping by each of the mapping tables shown in FIGS. 4 to 6;

FIG. 13 is a block diagram (1) showing a configuration of a conventional management system.

FIG. 14 is a block diagram (2) showing a configuration of a conventional management system.

FIG. 15 is a block diagram (3) showing a configuration of a conventional management system.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Integrated management apparatus 2 System A 3 System B 4 System C 10 LAN 11 Common interface module 12 Interface module according to billing system 13 Management object 14 Equipment 15 Common interface unit 16 Interface conversion unit 17 Object model conversion unit 18 Information conversion Unit 19 Charging system control unit 21 Management device 22-1, 22-2, 22-3 Printer 31 Management device 32-1, 32-2, 32-3 Copier 33 Exchanger 34-1, 34-2, 34-3 Telephone line 41 Management device 42 Printer 51 User information table 52 User mapping table 53 Department information table 54 Department management table 55 Device information table 56 Device mapping table

Claims (10)

[Claims] 1. An integrated management method for integrally managing a plurality of processing systems that process information in different methods and data formats, wherein each of the processing systems manages at least one device in the processing system and the device. An integrated management method, characterized in that it is modeled as a management device, and information obtained from each of the modeled management devices is converted into a unified common format and collected. 2. The information processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the information acquired from each of the management devices is converted based on a table in which a relationship between a format output by the management device and the common format is set. Integrated management method. 3. The charging system according to claim 1, wherein the processing system is a charging system for managing charging information of the image forming apparatus, and the model is a charging management apparatus of the charging system and an image forming apparatus managed by the charging management apparatus. The integrated management method according to claim 1, wherein: 4. The integrated management method according to claim 3, wherein the charging management device is connected to a network, and acquires the charging information via the network. 5. The method according to claim 3, wherein the accounting information is obtained via a recording medium.
Integrated management method described. 6. An integrated management device for integrally managing a plurality of processing systems that process information in different methods and data formats, wherein each of the processing systems manages at least one device in the processing system and the device. An integration characterized by comprising modeling means for modeling with a management device, and information converting means for converting information obtained from each of the models modeled by the modeling means into a unified common format. Management device. 7. The information conversion unit includes a table in which a relationship between the format output by the management device and the common format is set, and information obtained from each of the management devices is converted based on the information based on the table. 7. The method according to claim 6, wherein the conversion is performed.
Integrated management device as described. 8. The processing system is a charging system for managing charging information of an image forming apparatus, and the model is a charging management apparatus of the charging system and an image forming apparatus managed by the charging management apparatus. The integrated management device according to claim 6, wherein: 9. The integrated management system according to claim 8, wherein the charging management device is connected to a network, and the information conversion unit converts the charging information obtained via the network into the common format. apparatus. 10. The integrated management apparatus according to claim 8, wherein said information conversion means converts the accounting information obtained via a recording medium into said common format.