JP2002094561A - Network, switch, router and gateway for semantic information, and method and device for event routing - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a semantic information network in which an end user can specify optimum information among vast amounts of information distributed on the network and an information provider can specify an optimum user to whom the information provider should distribute information. SOLUTION: This semantic information network for distributing an event composed of semantic information and data is provided with a distribution destination deciding means for deciding the distribution destination of the event on the basis of the contents of the semantic information and an event distributing means for distributing the event to the distribution destination decided by the distribution destination deciding means.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an information processing system that enables an end user to specify optimal information from among a huge amount of information distributed on a network, and that an information provider provides an optimal user to whom information should be distributed. Information, a semantic information switch, a semantic information router, a semantic information gateway, an event routing method, and an event routing device.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art A conventional network is conceptually represented by a network model shown in FIG. In FIG. 16, each terminal registers a terminal address (for example, a network address and a host address) in the network as its own identifier. On the other hand, the transmitting terminal sends an event composed of the destination address (terminal address of the transmission destination) and data shown in FIG. 17 to the network. That is, the basic concept of the conventional information network is to correctly deliver an event to a destination based on a destination address.

[0003] A case will be considered in which a proposed service (a personalized information proposing service for proposing personalized information for each user and a yellow page service such as a search service) is realized using this network. Conventionally, in order to realize a personalized information proposal service, it is necessary to always interpose a centralized server system (broker) as shown in FIG. Similarly, the yellow page service also needs to assume a broker called a search service. Such a centralized business model via a broker is generally called a broker model. In this broker model,
A broker (intermediary) plays a role in linking the information provider with the user. That is, the user and the information provider can meet only through the broker.

[0004]

By the way, WWW (W
Distributed processing technologies such as the Old Wide Web) and CORBA provide an environment where contents distributed on a heterogeneous distributed system can be easily obtained while staying there, and anyone can easily become a content provider. Enabled. On the other hand, it is not easy for an end user to find desired content from among a huge amount of contents that are flooding the world, and it is desired to quickly establish a technology for realizing it.

The present invention has been made in view of such circumstances, and enables an end user to specify optimal information from a vast amount of information distributed on a network.
Further, a semantic information network that enables an information provider to specify an optimal user to distribute information to, and to directly search, find, and specify an entity to communicate without a broker. ,
It is an object of the present invention to provide a semantic information switch, a semantic information router, a semantic information gateway, an event routing method, and an event routing device.

[0006]

The invention according to claim 1 is a semantic information network for delivering an event consisting of semantic information and data, wherein the semantic information network is based on the contents of the semantic information. A delivery destination determining means for determining a delivery destination of the event, and an event delivery means for delivering the event to the delivery destination determined by the delivery destination determination means are provided.

[0007] According to a second aspect of the present invention, there is provided a semantic information switch for activating an entity to which an event is to be delivered based on semantic information included in a plurality of entities that receive an event to be delivered in a network. The semantic information switch, the semantic information collating means for collating the semantic information registered in advance and the semantic information included in the event, and, based on a result collated by the semantic information collating means, the entity, And switching means for starting.

According to a third aspect of the present invention, there is provided a semantic information router for selecting a route of an event distributed in a network based on semantic information, wherein the semantic information router includes a semantic information included in the event. A route selection unit for dynamically selecting a route to which the event is to be delivered, and an event sending unit for sending the event to the route selected by the route selection unit. It is characterized by.

According to a fourth aspect of the present invention, there is provided a semantic information gateway for interconnecting semantic information networks of minimum units having different semantic information spaces and transferring events including semantic information, wherein the semantic information gateway is provided. Is
Ontology conversion means for performing an ontology conversion of the event based on an ontology system adopted by the semantic information network to which the event is transferred, and transferring the event that has been ontology-converted by the ontology conversion means to a different semantic information network And an event transfer unit.

The invention according to claim 5 is a semantic information network, wherein the semantic information switch according to claim 2, the semantic information router according to claim 3, and the semantic information gateway according to claim 4. And characterized in that:

According to a sixth aspect of the present invention, there is provided an event routing method for determining an event delivery route based on semantic information included in an event when the event including semantic information and data is delivered, The event routing method includes a step of generating a shared link object for establishing a shared link for performing an event transfer based on physical link information of an event place object; and a step of generating a shared link object based on the shared link object. An event path setting step of setting an event path by registering a filter for transferring the event to a series of event place objects based on the event path; And having an event delivery process for delivering the event to determine the transmission path.

According to a seventh aspect of the present invention, there is provided an event routing apparatus for determining an event delivery route based on semantic information included in an event when an event including semantic information and data is delivered, The event routing device includes: a shared link object generating unit configured to generate a shared link object for establishing a shared link for performing an event transfer based on physical link information of an event place object; and shared link information established by the shared link object. Event path setting means for setting an event path by registering a filter for transferring the event to a series of event place objects based on the event path; Determining the transmission path, characterized in that a event delivery means for delivering the event.

[0013]

An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. First, the semantic information network (Se
mantic Information-Oriented Network, hereinafter SIO
N) will be briefly described. The SION is a network that can deliver an event to a destination based on semantic information. FIG. 1 shows a conceptual model of the SION. In FIG. 1, each terminal 2 registers semantic information (SI) in the SION 1. On the other hand, the terminal 2 transmitting the event transmits the semantic information and the data (Dat
The event composed of a) is sent to SION1.
The semantic information described here describes the characteristics of the data included in the event, and is positioned as meta information of the data. For example, the semantic information is as follows:-Deliver the data to "Tokyo residents". -Deliver the data to "People interested in classics". -Deliver the data to "people who have a communication environment of 1 Mbps or more".・ Deliver the data to "people who are traveling on Mejiro Street". Deliver the data to "content providers with content that matches the keyword (eg, travel)". Is used.

The SION dynamically determines a target (terminal, person, software, etc.) to which data is to be delivered based on the semantic information as described above, and delivers the data to the specified target person. It is an autonomous decentralized meta-network that can make notifications. By using this SION, it is possible to directly propose own information only to users who are appropriate for the information provider to provide without using a broker. In this case, a business model that enables peer-to-peer information proposals with a broker-independent type (non-broker model) is called a patronage model (or a patronage-type information proposal model or non-broker model). Call. Similarly, a real-time information search that allows a user to directly search for desired information without using a search service (broker) is also possible. In addition, it is possible to apply to the following services and the like as a request-by-order information proposal service. . (1) Manufacturing company: I want to send product information mainly to customers who are likely to be interested in their products. (2) Advertiser: I want to send a personalized advertisement for each customer. (3) Barter: I want to buy and sell or exchange products based on agreement between users.

Note that what information is set in the data portion of the event depends on the service. For example, various usage forms such as an entity of information, a reference to information (URL, distributed object identifier, etc.), a proxy (Jini proxy, etc.), and a mobile agent are possible.

Next, the details of the SION will be described. <ION Architecture> First, the network architecture of the SION will be described. Figure 3 shows the SION
3 shows a network model. Here, for convenience of explanation,
The terminal 2 is separately described as a transmission terminal 21 of the event sender and a reception terminal 22 of the event receiver. The event receiver registers the semantic information (the type of the event to be received and the acquisition condition) of the event that the user wants to receive using the receiving terminal 22 as metadata in the SION1. This is called a filter. On the other hand, the event sender sends an event to the SION 1 using the transmission terminal 21 to stimulate the SION (Incentive).
give. This event is composed of semantic information and data describing characteristics of the event, as shown in FIG. FIG. 4 shows the definition of the semantic information. The semantic information is event metadata and is an instance of a semantic information type (event type).

The SION 1 is an autonomous distributed collation network for collating (filtering) an event sent by an event sender with a filter registered by an event recipient. As a result of matching, the filter that passed the event (reacted to the event)
n) Then, the receiving terminal 22 of the corresponding event receiver autonomously starts. With this mechanism, it becomes possible to search and find the target terminal 2 in a scalable and real-time manner from an unspecified number of terminals 2.

Next, the event type will be described.
FIG. 5 shows an example of defining an event type that is a template of an event. As shown in FIG. 5, the event type includes an event type name (Event type name) and a condition name (in FIG. 5, “Service” and “CPU power” correspond to each other), and a data type for each condition name ( St
irng and Long) and conditional expressions (== and> =). The event type name is a name for uniquely identifying the event type. Note that the parent type of the event type can be inherited.

As shown in FIG. 6, an event is created according to the data structure of the event type. An event is composed of an event type name, a combination of condition name and condition value, and
It consists of a data section. If the condition name, condition expression, and condition value defined in the event do not match the event type, an error will occur. However, the condition names used in the event may be a subset of the event type.

FIG. 7 shows a definition example of a filter. The filter accepts the event type name (Event type nam
e), attribute name (in FIG. 7, "CPU power" or "Ag
e ") and an attribute value (equivalent to 200 and 25 in FIG. 7). Only events belonging to the event type defined by the event type name to be accepted are subjected to filtering. Can have multiple event type names defined,
By specifying a wild card (*. *), It is possible to target all events. If the attribute name defined by the filter does not exist in the condition name of the event type defined by the event type name to be accepted, an error occurs. However, a subset of the event type may be used.

Next, the configuration of the SION 1 will be described. FIG.
FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a configuration of a SION1. As shown in FIG. 8, SION1 is a semantic information switch (Semantic Informa).
Option-Switch, shown as SI-SW in the drawing, Semantic Information -Router, shown as SI-R in the drawing, Semantic Information Gateway (Semant
ic Information-Getaway, which is shown as SI-GW in the drawing).

The semantic information switch (SI-SW) collates the semantic information registered as a filter with the semantic information given to the event, and as a result, activates a switching mechanism for activating the terminal 2 of the event receiver who fired. provide. The semantic information switch (SI-SW) and each terminal 2 are connected in a star configuration.

The semantic information router (SI-R) selects an event path between the semantic information switches,
And transfers the event sent from the to the semantic information switch to another semantic information switch. This is achieved by dynamic event routing based on semantic information.

The semantic information gateway (SI-GW)
Transfer events between event places. Here, the event place is a minimum unit (ontology domain) that guarantees a common semantic information space. In the event place, the uniqueness of the ontology system such as the name, concept, vocabulary, meaning, and association of the event type is guaranteed, and the semantic information is described based on the common ontology. Basically, the event sent from the terminal 2 of the event sender is distributed only in the event place, but the semantic information gateway (SI-
Through the GW), it is possible to exchange events between event places having different ontology systems. At this time, the semantic information gateway (SI-G
W) performs the ontology conversion of the event, and then transfers the event to a different event place.

<Operation mechanism and interface specification>
As an example of a method of implementing the SION1, an implementation method using a distributed object technology will be described. Here, SI-SW, S
The IR and the SI-GW are implemented as distributed objects called an event place object (EPO), a shared link object (SLO), and a federation agent (FA), respectively. The operation mechanism and control interface of the ION 1 will be described in detail with reference to FIG. In addition, SION-MT (Managem)
ENT Tool) or the ION interface, the ION1 network interface can be used. Also, using MT, EPO
Withdrawal, increase / decrease, dynamic change of physical link information, PO migration (dynamic change of EPO to which PO is bound),
It is easy to collect the firing rate, collect statistical information on popular coastal information and popular information.

Startup and Initialization of Event Place Factory (FIG. 9 (1)) First, the SION operator starts an event place factory (EPF) on an arbitrary host, and then, starts an EPF.
Is initialized. At this time, a host name capable of generating an event place (EP) and a storage location of an executable file of the EP are given to the EPF. These are called EP generation information.

A request for generating an event place (FIG. 9)
(2)) Next, the EP operator requests the EPF to generate an EP. At this time, an EP name and an EP attribute are given.
Here, the EP attribute indicates whether the generated EP is used for a purpose-built model or an inquiry model, and indicates the direction of the flow of the event.

Generation of Event Place (FIG. 9 (3)) Next, the EPF that has received the EP generation request generates an EP. Specifically, at this time, an event place management object (EPMO) for managing the EP is generated. That is, the processing request to the EP is EPMO
This is the same as the processing request to. The EPF returns the identifier of the generated EP (that is, EPMO) to the generation request source. The EPMO is generated for a dynamically determined host from among the hosts capable of generating an EP specified in (1) of FIG. As a method of determining the host to which EPMO is to be started, the destination to be started is determined cyclically.
It is possible to select a method such as deciding according to the traffic or explicitly specifying the boot destination host.

An event place initialization request (FIG. 9)
(4)) Next, the EP operator requests EPMO to initialize the EP. At this time, a single event place object or a multiple event place object is designated. When a multiple event place object is specified, it is necessary to provide physical link information (topology) of the event place object (EPO) together. Here, the physical link information of the EPO expresses which other EPO knows which other EPO exists.

For example, as shown in FIG.
32 is EPO1 • 31, EPO3 • 33, EPO4 •
Knows the existence of EPO3, but EPO33
・ It expresses that only 32 existences are known. As described above, the multiple EPO aims at improving the scalability by distributing the load of the event matching process in the EP.

The EPMO is used to select an EPO from the host list capable of generating an EP specified in (1) of FIG.
Is dynamically determined, and EPO is generated there. At this time, each EPO has one filter factory (FF) and one statistical information collection object (S
O) are always generated accompanying them, and these correspond to SI-SW. Further, a shared link object (SLO) is generated accompanying each EPO according to the number of physical links. For example, three S for EPO2 · 32
LO is generated (SLO2,1, SLO2,3, SLO in the figure)
These correspond to SI-R. E
The method of determining the activation destination of the PO is the same as that of the EPMO, but it is also possible to fix the EPO to be used for each event type. The EPMO generates an event type factory (ETF) in the EP. Within the EP, a unified event type namespace is guaranteed by the ETF.

Request for Session Establishment for Event Transmission to Event Place (FIG. 9 (5)) Next, a request is made to the EP to establish a session. EPMO
Is a proxy object (PO) for each session request
Generate The session identifier, which is the identifier of the PO, is returned to the request source. It should be noted that the EPMO uses which EPO for the PO when generating the PO (which EPO
And bind). This instruction is required in multiple EPO, but the method of determining the EPO to be bound is the same as that of EPMO. When a session establishment request is made to the EP, it is necessary to specify whether the session is a session for event transmission or a session for event reception. In this example, a session for event transmission is specified.

Registration of Event Type (FIG. 9 (6)) Next, registration of an event type is requested to the PO. At this time, the PO requests the ETF to generate an event type object (ETO). Further, the event type is stored in the generated ETO. On the other hand, an event type registration can be requested from the EP. At this time,
EPMO requests the ETF to generate an ETO, and stores the event type in the generated ETO. Generally, an event sender registers an event type via a PO. On the other hand, the EP operator registers an event type in the EP. Note that registering an event type with the same name will result in an error.

A session establishment request for event reception for the event place (FIG. 9 (7)) Next, the EP is requested to establish a session for event reception. At this time, the requester of the session establishment (event receiving object) sets the identifier of the event receiving object, which is the event notification destination, and the event notification method (firing type, look-in type) as parameters. Give as. Subsequently, the EPMO generates a PO for each session request. The session identifier is returned to the request source. The EPMO instructs the PO to use the EPO when the PO is generated. This instruction is required for multiple EPO,
Is determined in the same manner as in EPMO.

Request for generation of filter object (FIG. 9)
(8)) Next, request the PO to generate a filter object (FO). At this time, the PO requests the FF to generate the FO. At this time, the FF attached to the EPO bound to the PO is used. The identifier of the generated FO is returned to the FO generation request source via the PO.

Setting of Filter Value (FIG. 9 (9)) Next, the PO is requested to set a filter value in the FO using the FO identifier as a parameter. Note that the event type name stored in the filter object (that is, the event type name to be filtered)
It is possible to selectively request the ETO to check whether the data structure (filter value) of the FO is correct, using the key as a key. If not, an error occurs. However, when a wild card is specified, this check processing is not performed at all.

Filter Registration (FIG. 9 (10)) Next, after setting a filter value in the FO, the PO is requested to register the filter using the filter identifier of F as a parameter. At this time, the filter identifier is returned to the registration request source. With this as a trigger, it becomes possible to receive events. Note that a plurality of filters can be registered through one PO. (For this, a plurality of different FOs are registered as filters through one PO, or the same FO is registered as a filter a plurality of times. However, all filters registered for one PO have an “OR relationship”.

Event transmission (FIG. 9A) Next, the event sender transmits an event to the PO. At this time, the PO can selectively request the ETO to check whether the data structure of the event is correct, using the event type name stored in the event as a key. When this check process is selected, if it is correct, the process proceeds to the next process (FIG. 9B), and if it is not correct, an error occurs.

Event collation request (FIG. 9B) Next, the PO transfers the event to the EPO. At this time,
EPO creates a thread. Note that a thread is generated for each event, and each thread performs multiplex processing of the event.

Collation with Filter (FIG. 9C) Next, the thread (EPO) performs filtering by collating the event with the filter. These include exact, partial, and weighted matches,
Can be specified when setting the filter value.

Activating the proxy object (FIG. 9)
(D)) Next, as a result of matching with the filter, when the event passes the filter, the corresponding PO is activated and receives this event. At this time, the PO can selectively register the received event type, value, event ID, and the like in the SO. From this information, the SO can measure the firing rate of the event (for each event type and each event) and the highly reputed events that are prevalent in the EP.

Activation of event reception object (FIG. 9)
(E) Next, the PO activates the event receiving object and passes the event to the event receiving object. This corresponds to the firing type (interrupt type) event notification.

Look-in type event notification (FIG. 9)
(F) On the other hand, instead of the PO activating the event receiving object, the event receiving object itself can also take out the event spooled in the PO corresponding to the event receiving object. This corresponds to a look-in type event notification. There are various triggers for activating the event receiving object depending on the service form. As a typical example, a case in which an end user makes a content proposal request to the event receiving object is considered.

<Filter Management Method> Next, a filter management method in each EPO will be described. First, a session for receiving an event is established. At this time, one PO is generated for each session request, and this PO is bound to any one EPO. Each EPO is accompanied by one FF. As a result, the EPO used by the PO is uniquely determined, and all subsequent processing is performed via the PO (event receiving session).

Next, an FO is generated, and a filter value (a type of an event to be received and an acquisition condition thereof) is set for the FO. Subsequently, a filter is registered using the FO identifier as a parameter. At this time, the FO identifier is stored in each filter. Each EPO manages the filters registered via the PO based on the following rules. First, using the FO identifier stored in the filter,
Refer to “type of event to be received” set in O. Subsequently, the filters are classified for each type of event to be received, and the filters classified for each event type are further classified and managed for each PO.

Referring to FIG. 11 regarding this management rule,
A case where a filter is registered via PO1 will be described. Here, it is assumed that “event type X” is set as the type of the event to be received in the FO specified at the time of filter registration. At this time, EPO
Corresponds to the filter 1 in FIG. 11, and similarly, the filter registered via the PO2 corresponds to the filter 2. In each PO, a plurality of filters can be registered. However, the registered filters have an “OR relationship”.

First, the event of the event type X is EP
When it arrives at O, matching with filter 1 is performed. As a result, when the filter 1 fires, the PO1 is activated.
Next, matching with filter 2 is performed, and as a result, when filter 2 fires, PO2 is activated. At this time, since the filters 2 and 3 have an “OR relationship”, the matching with the filter 3 is not performed. By using such a filter management method, each E for one event
The number of times of the collation processing at the PO can be basically set to the number of POs (the number of reception sessions) or less.

<Event Routing Method> Next, an event routing method will be described. EPO (SI
-SW) accommodates event senders and receivers (entities such as terminals) in a star format via a session. Further, the EPO (SI-SW) collates the filter registered by the event receiver (event receiving object) with the event sent by the event sender, and as a result, only the event receiver corresponding to the fired filter receives the event. (Delivery of the event only to the matching event receiver).

Therefore, as the number of event senders (the number of events) and the number of event receivers (the number of filters) increase, the processing capability of the EPO becomes saturated in proportion thereto. Therefore, the SION architecture provides a multiple EPO as a means for realizing an EP with high scalability. Multiple EPO refers to the number of EPOs
The purpose of the present invention is to achieve a high scalability of EP from the following two viewpoints.

The first point is load distribution and autonomous distribution. This is to distribute the load of event filtering processing by distributing event senders and receivers to a plurality of EPOs, so as to prevent a bottleneck factor accompanying processing concentration. . Further, each EPO achieves distributed coordination by a mechanism that can operate autonomously without being affected by other EPOs.

The second point is reduction of network traffic and optimization of the filtering process. This is EP
This is to minimize the amount of communication by not transferring unnecessary events between Os, and to reduce unnecessary filtering processing.

In FIG. 10, for EPO3 • 33,
It is assumed that a filter of event type X is registered as a type of an event to be received. Here, when an event of event type X is sent to EPO4, it is necessary to transfer this event to EPO3 via EPO2. At this time, the event must not be transferred to EPO1 in which the filter of the event type X is not registered. What controls such event routing between EPOs is a shared link object (SLO), which corresponds to the SI-R described above.

Hereinafter, the SI-R will be described in detail.
First, at the time of initializing an EP, an SLO is generated accompanying each EPO based on physical link information (EPO topology). For example, in FIG. 9, three SLOs are generated for EPO2. These are SLO2,1,
It corresponds to SLO2,3 and SLO2,4. This SLOi, j
A shared link (SLi, j) for transferring an event from EPOj to EPOj is established. That is, as shown in FIG. 9 and FIG. 12, SLOi, j establishes an event reception session with EPOj, while establishing an event transmission session with EPOi,
Establish a shared link SLi, j which is a logical link for event transfer (shared link means establishment of a session by SLO at the time of EP initialization, and does not include filter registration processing).

After the initialization of the EP, the event receiver sets the E
It is possible to establish a session to P and register a filter via the session. At this time, an event path is set according to the established shared link. For example, in FIG. 12, an event receiver (Event
When the receiver 3 registers the filter for receiving the event of the event type X in the EPO 3 via the PO 3, the PO 3 registers the filter of the event type X in the EPO 3 and notifies the SLO 3, j ( Here, SLO3,2) is notified, and SLO3,2 is SL3,2.
Is used to register a filter of event type X for EPO2. This is performed via the PO of the receiving session assigned to SLO3,2, as described above. Similarly, this PO indicates to that effect that SLO2,3
Is notified to other SLO2, j except for. SLO2, j
(J ≠ 3) registers the filter in EPO using SL2, j. The process is repeated in the same manner until all EPOs are set to the path for the event X.

A series of paths established for the event type X is called an event path. this is,
The filter registration via PO3 is a trigger, and the event path setting request for each event type sequentially and autonomously propagates to all EPOs. That is,
Each EPO needs to recognize only the adjacent EPO.
For this reason, it is possible to establish the event path with a simple and unified autonomous logic as compared with the event path setting / management method by centralized management and broadcast of the event path.

FIG. 13 shows the registration status of the filter in the EPO 1 at this time. As a result of the event receiver 3 registering the filter via PO3, filter 1 becomes EPO1.
Will be registered. Setting an event path refers to registering a filter for event transfer in a series of EPOs based on shared link information. Also,
In the filter registered by the SLO, only the event type name to be received is set, and the acquisition condition is not set.
Filter only the event type name.

In this situation, the event receiver 2 has a P
Via O2, filter the event type X to EPO
When the event path is registered in EPO2, the setting of the new event path spreads to all EPOs as described above. As a result, the filter 2 is registered in EPO1, and the filter is registered every time an event path setting request is made. Will be done.

At this time, when an event of the event type X is sent to the EPO1, the filter 1 fires and the SLO
2,1 is activated. SLO2,1 reports this event as EPO
SLO3,2 is activated by sending to SLO2. Further, the event is transferred to EPO3 via SLO3,2. To prevent infinite transfer of events between SL2,3 and SL3,2, the event is
As one of the control information, a maximum of two identifiers of the passed EPO are stored in the latest order.

As described above, since the filter 1 and the filter 2 have an OR relationship, when the filter 1 fires, the filter 1 and the filter 2 are not collated. Therefore, even though the filter 1 exists, it is possible to prevent the redundant overhead of the filtering process caused by newly registering the filter 2 from occurring at all. This means that when an event path is set, there is no need to rebuild all event paths including the existing event path, and a simple and unified event path autonomous setting becomes possible. .

If there is a session established by the event receiver in EPO 1 and a filter registration via the session (corresponding to the filter 3 of POn), after all the filtering processes corresponding to SLO are completed, Is performed. That is, the event transfer processing to another EPO is performed with priority, and then,
The collation processing in own EPO is started.

A further effect of the event routing method described above is that it is not necessary to reconstruct an event path when deregistering a filter. For example, when the event receiver 3 cancels the registration of the registered filter via the PO 3, the cancellation request sequentially and autonomously spreads, similarly to the case of the registration. As a result, in EPO1,
Only the registration of the filter 1 will be cancelled, but the filter 2 survives (hereinafter, the filter 2 forwards the event instead of the filter 1). Event path consistency is guaranteed.

By using such an autonomous distributed routing control method, it is possible to easily realize interconnection and distributed coordination of EPO. Accordingly, a transition from a small network to a large network, a transition from a local network to a global network, and the like can be smoothly performed. Also,
Global networking with a bottom-up approach can be easily achieved with common logic.

<Federation Method> Next, the federation method will be described with reference to FIG. The federation agent (FA) is an agent that establishes a federation between event places, and corresponds to the above-described SI-GW. For example, an event place (Event Place) A is an event place (Event Place)
Place) A case where a federation is established for B is considered. First, an FA belonging to event place A registers a filter for event place B. At this time, the event sender belonging to the event place B sends an event, and as a result, when this filter fires, the FA autonomously starts. This can regard the FA as one event recipient belonging to event place B. Next, the FA retransmits the acquired event to the event place A to which the FA belongs. this is,
FA can be considered as one event sender belonging to event place A.

As described above, federation between event places can be easily realized by using an FA having both roles. That is, it is possible to realize the federation between the event places with the same control logic as that of the single event place. Using this mechanism,
By interconnecting the event places, which are one basic configuration unit, a global collation network can be constructed by a bottom-up approach, and sharing of events across event places can be realized. Note that event place A and event place B
Have different ontologies, the FA belonging to the event place A converts the event acquired from the event place B into the ontology of the event place A, and then sends the event to the event place A.

When event transfer is performed across different ontology systems, ontology conversion is required.
As a conventional technique for performing this conversion, when a standard ontology is defined and an event is transferred to another event place, a method of transferring the event after temporarily converting the event to a format conforming to the standard ontology, and a method of transferring the event to another event place. There are methods such as preparing an ontology conversion table for the number of combinations in advance.

However, the conventional method lacks flexibility in order to cope with dynamic federation of event places (dynamic start and release of federation). Therefore, in the present invention, as shown in FIG.
Holds only the difference (conversion information) from the ontology information of the adjacent event place in the ontology conversion table. In other words, this is a method in which each FA stores the conversion information in a distributed manner, and assures the consistency of the ontology system as a whole. This makes it possible to easily cope with dynamic federation between event places, but on the other hand, every time an event crosses an event place, an ontology conversion process occurs. It has the feature that processing overhead increases.

<Community and Evolved Network> Next, a community service which is one of the killer services of the SION 1 will be described. An entity in a community service is an autonomous decentralized operation entity that can dynamically determine an activity mode by repeating learning, evolution, degeneration, and disappearance based on its own policy. Communities provide an efficient forum for such entities to communicate. In other words, entities in the community dynamically search for and identify entities that should communicate with themselves or that affect their behavior.
It is possible to discover / specify and interact with the specified entity.

This community can handle entities with the following characteristics in particular. (1) There is a huge number of entities in a community with a very small granularity (an unspecified number of entities). (2) The attributes of the entity change in real time.
Typical entity attributes include location information, time, and the like. (3) The behavior of entities in the community is not regular, and it is difficult to predict behavior. (4) Participation in the community, departure from the community, disappearance, duplication, etc. occur frequently and irregularly. (5) Entities in a community need to meet each other in real time based on policies, attributes, scenarios, and the like.

It is not easy in terms of performance to manage entities having such characteristics by a server or a mediator (broker) and to search and discover each other in real time. S
The ION1 EP is positioned as an execution environment of a community having such characteristics. That is, the community is a meta execution environment of the EP, and provides a place of communication with a higher level of abstraction than directly using the EP. By using the EP in the execution environment of the community, all the entities in the community can directly find the entity to communicate with without going through the broker. This is because communication of entities in the community is implemented as sending and receiving events in the EP.

FIG. 15 shows a conceptual model of a community. A user agent (UA) and an information and service providing agent (ISA) correspond to entities in a community. The UA is an agent that behaves autonomously as a user's agent.
It dynamically determines its own behavior according to location information, situation, tendency, etc., and interacts with ISAs and other U
Search for A and interact with them. An ISA is an agent that acts autonomously as an agent of an information provider or a service provider.
Search for UAs and other ISAs to interact with.
That is, a user suitable for providing his / her information is searched for and specified.

On the other hand, the community agent (Com
A) is an agent that manages the community. The EP operator sets the SION-
Controls and operates the SION via MT. Therefore, C
The omA can be considered as an agent of the EP operator. Basically, the operational policy of the community is defined by ComA. For example, UA, ISA
Authorization, such as participation, departure, extinction, duplication, etc., to the community for such entities, understanding and controlling information to be distributed within the community (deletion of inappropriate events, etc.), statistical information within the community (trend information, reputable information Etc.) based on their own management policies.

Further, in order to achieve the guarantee of high scalability and reliability of the community, SION control such as increase / decrease, withdrawal, and migration of EPs and EPOs is executed in accordance with a load condition or a failure condition. That is, by combining ION1 and ComA, ION1 learns from the autonomous decentralized network,
It evolves into an evolutionary network that can grow and evolve.
In this way, the ComA controls the behavior of the entities in the community and plays a role in self-organizing SION1. Further, the collaboration between the communities enables the sharing of information between the communities. For example, among the information distributed in the community A, only the top 10 most popular can be distributed to the community B. The processing flow is shown below.

First, the ComA of the community B instructs the FA of the event place B to “distribute only the top 10 most popular information among the information distributed in the community A to the community B”. I do.

Next, the FA inquires of the event place A about the top ten event types. In response to this, the event place A inquires the subordinate statistical information collection object (SO) and sends the result to the FA.
Return to.

Next, the FA creates an ontology conversion table based on the acquired event type, and sets a filter for the event place A. Hereafter, F
A can receive the event from the event place A.

Next, the FA converts the event acquired from the event place A into an ontology based on the ontology conversion table, and sends the event to the event place B.

As described above, according to this embodiment, the following two effects can be obtained. First, a SION network environment can be easily constructed on a distributed object environment. Second, by allowing the service application to participate in the community as an entity, it is possible to easily send out an event or to pick up a necessary event, thereby enabling mutual communication.

[0078]

As described above, according to the present invention, the following effects can be obtained. With the federation mechanism between event places via FA, an event that has been distributed only in other event places can be taken into its own event place. Conversely, by sending an event to another event place, it is possible to advertise the event distributed in the own event place. Thus, between different event places,
In addition to sharing events, interoperability between event places taking into account the ontology makes it possible to construct a global autonomous distributed collation network using a bottom-up approach.

The multiple EPO mechanism makes it possible to distribute the load of the filtering process to a plurality of EPOs, and the autonomously operating event routing mechanism between EPOs makes it possible to minimize network traffic. Become. This results in E
The total throughput of P can be scalably improved.

It is possible to directly search for and find an entity suitable for itself without going through a broker. For example, an information provider can specify a user who is suitable for the information provided by himself without knowing the existence of the user. Similarly, the user can search for and find an information provider suitable for his / her taste without knowing the existence of the information provider. That is, the user and the information provider are transparent to each other. As a result, information can be transmitted in real time according to the own policy without relying on a specific broker. Further, when the number of entities to be searched is enormous or when the entities frequently enter and leave the search target domain, the search technique based on the non-broker model is particularly effective.

In the SION, the end point of the semantic information is a network. On the other hand, in a method of performing a peer-to-peer connection between terminals, the terminal of the semantic information is the terminal, so that the contents of the terminal are disclosed to the outside. Therefore, SION can realize higher security and privacy protection than the latter method.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a configuration of an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is an explanatory diagram showing a configuration of an event.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a model of a semantic information network.

FIG. 4 is an explanatory diagram showing the definition of semantic information.

FIG. 5 is an explanatory diagram showing a definition example of an event type.

FIG. 6 is an explanatory diagram showing an example of an event.

FIG. 7 is an explanatory diagram showing a definition example of a filter.

FIG. 8 is a diagram showing a configuration of a semantic information network.

FIG. 9 is an explanatory diagram showing an operation mechanism and a control interface of the semantic information network.

FIG. 10 is an explanatory diagram showing a physical link.

FIG. 11 is an explanatory diagram showing a filter management method.

FIG. 12 is an explanatory diagram showing an event routing method.

FIG. 13 is an explanatory diagram showing a registration status of a filter.

FIG. 14 is an explanatory diagram showing a federation method.

FIG. 15 is an explanatory diagram showing a community model.

FIG. 16 is an explanatory diagram showing a conventional technique.

FIG. 17 is an explanatory diagram showing a conventional technique.

FIG. 18 is an explanatory view showing a conventional technique.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 ... semantic information network (SION), 2 ... terminal, SI-SW ... semantic information switch, SI-R ... semantic information router, SI-GW ... semantic information gateway, EPO ... -Event place object, SLO: Shared link object, FA: Federation agent.

 ────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continued on the front page (72) Inventor Takamichi Sakai 2-3-1 Otemachi, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo F-term in Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation (reference) 5B075 KK02 PQ05 UU16 5K030 GA17 HA08 HB13 HB28 HB29 HD03 LA07 LB05 LB06 5K034 AA19 BB05 DD02 HH01 HH16 HH61 LL01 MM15

Claims (7)

[Claims] 1. A semantic information network for distributing an event composed of semantic information and data, the semantic information network comprising: a destination determining means for determining a destination of the event based on contents of the semantic information; And an event delivery means for delivering the event to the delivery destination determined by the delivery destination determination means. 2. A semantic information switch for connecting a plurality of entities that receive an event delivered in a network and activating an entity to which an event is to be delivered based on semantic information included in the event, The switch comprises: a semantic information matching unit that matches the semantic information registered in advance with the semantic information included in the event; and a switching unit that activates the entity based on a result matched by the semantic information matching unit. A semantic information switch, comprising: 3. A semantic information router for selecting a route of an event distributed in a network based on semantic information, wherein the semantic information router is configured to perform a route selection based on contents of semantic information included in the event. Semantic information comprising: a route selecting unit that dynamically selects a route to which an event is to be delivered; and an event sending unit that sends the event to the route selected by the route selecting unit. Router. 4. A semantic information gateway for interconnecting semantic information networks of minimum units having different semantic information spaces and transferring events including semantic information, wherein the semantic information gateway is a destination of the event. Ontology conversion means for performing an ontology conversion of the event, based on an ontology system adopted by the semantic information network, and an event transfer means for transferring the ontology-converted event to a different semantic information network in the ontology conversion means. A semantic information gateway, comprising: 5. A semantic information network comprising: the semantic information switch according to claim 2, a semantic information router according to claim 3, and a semantic information gateway according to claim 4. 6. An event routing method for determining an event delivery route based on semantic information included in an event when delivering an event including semantic information and data, the event routing method comprising: A shared link object generating step of generating a shared link object for establishing a shared link for performing event transfer based on the physical link information of the place object; and a series of event places based on the shared link information established by the shared link object. An event path setting step of setting an event path by registering a filter for transferring the event to an object; and determining a delivery route of the event based on the event path. Event routing method characterized in that it comprises an event delivery process for delivering the cement, the. 7. An event routing apparatus for determining an event delivery route based on semantic information included in an event when delivering an event including semantic information and data, the event routing apparatus comprising: A shared link object generating means for generating a shared link object for establishing a shared link for performing event transfer based on physical link information of the place object; and a series of event places based on the shared link information established by the shared link object. An event path setting means for setting an event path by registering a filter for transferring the event to an object; and determining a delivery route of the event based on the event path. Event routing apparatus comprising: the event delivery means for delivering the cement, the.