JP2022044845A - Monitoring system and monitoring program - Google Patents

Abstract

To provide a monitoring system and a monitoring program that can increase the stability of remote management of an image forming apparatus performed by a remote management system.SOLUTION: A monitoring system acquires information from a remote management system that remotely manages an image forming apparatus (S121), analyzes the information acquired in S121 to detect a failure in the remote management system (YES in S122) and determines the importance of the failure (S126), and notifies a preset notification destination of the failure in the remote management system detected in S122 in association with the importance determined in S126 (S132-S133).SELECTED DRAWING: Figure 9

Description

The present invention relates to a monitoring system and a monitoring program of a remote management system that remotely manages an image forming apparatus.

Conventionally, a remote management system for detecting a failure of an image forming apparatus is known (see, for example, Patent Document 1-4).

Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 8-30152 Japanese Patent No. 6303875 Japanese Patent No. 6331778 Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2017-27124

However, in the conventional technique, since the failure of the remote management system cannot be detected, there is a problem that the image forming apparatus cannot be remotely managed by the remote management system when the failure occurs in the remote management system. ..

Therefore, an object of the present invention is to provide a monitoring system and a monitoring program capable of improving the stability of remote management of an image forming apparatus by a remote management system.

The monitoring system of the present invention has an information acquisition unit that acquires information from a remote management system that remotely manages an image forming apparatus, an information analysis unit that analyzes information acquired by the information acquisition unit, and an analysis by the information analysis unit. The information analysis unit is provided with a result notification unit for notifying the result of the above, and the information analysis unit detects a failure of the remote management system based on the information acquired by the information acquisition unit, and determines the importance of the failure. The result notification unit is characterized in that a failure of the remote management system detected by the information analysis unit is notified to a notification destination set in association with the importance determined by the information analysis unit. ..

With this configuration, when a failure occurs in the remote management system, the monitoring system of the present invention notifies the remote management system of the failure of the remote management system to an appropriate notification destination according to the severity of the failure. Appropriate measures can be taken against it. Therefore, the monitoring system of the present invention can improve the stability of the remote management of the image forming apparatus by the remote management system.

In the monitoring system of the present invention, the information acquisition unit also acquires information from the ICT platform on which the remote management system operates, and the information analysis unit detects that the cause of the failure of the remote management system is the ICT platform. Whether or not it is due to the failure of the remote management system is determined based on the information acquired by the information acquisition unit, and the result notification unit causes the failure of the remote management system to be due to the failure of the ICT infrastructure. When it is determined by the information analysis unit, a support request for notifying the content of this failure may be issued to the provider of the ICT platform.

With this configuration, the monitoring system of the present invention detects a failure of the remote management system based not only on the information acquired from the remote management system but also on the information acquired from the ICT platform on which the remote management system operates. The accuracy of system failure detection can be improved. Further, when the cause of the failure of the remote management system is the failure of the ICT platform, the monitoring system of the present invention issues a support request for notifying the content of the failure to the provider of the ICT platform. Therefore, it is possible to improve the possibility that appropriate measures are taken for the ICT platform on which the remote management system operates, and as a result, the stability of the remote management of the image forming apparatus by the remote management system can be improved.

In the monitoring system of the present invention, the information acquisition unit may also acquire information from the image forming apparatus.

With this configuration, the monitoring system of the present invention detects a failure of the remote management system based on not only the information acquired from the remote management system but also the information acquired from the image forming apparatus, so that the failure of the remote management system can be detected. The accuracy of the system can be improved.

The monitoring program of the present invention includes an information acquisition unit that acquires information from a remote management system that remotely manages an image forming apparatus, an information analysis unit that analyzes information acquired by the information acquisition unit, and an analysis by the information analysis unit. A result notification unit for notifying the result of the above is realized in a computer, and the information analysis unit detects a failure of the remote management system based on the information acquired by the information acquisition unit and determines the importance of the failure. The result notification unit determines and notifies the notification destination set in association with the importance determined by the information analysis unit of the failure of the remote management system detected by the information analysis unit. It is a feature.

With this configuration, the computer executing the monitoring program of the present invention notifies the failure of the remote management system to the appropriate notification destination according to the severity of the failure when the failure of the remote management system occurs. Appropriate measures can be taken for remote management systems. Therefore, the computer that executes the monitoring program of the present invention can improve the stability of the remote management of the image forming apparatus by the remote management system.

The monitoring system and the monitoring program of the present invention can improve the stability of the remote management of the image forming apparatus by the remote management system.

It is a block diagram of the system which concerns on one Embodiment of this invention. It is a block diagram of the remote management system shown in FIG. It is a block diagram of the monitoring system shown in FIG. 1 in the case of being configured by one computer. It is a figure which shows an example of the cloud failure table shown in FIG. It is a figure which shows an example of the temporary management table shown in FIG. It is a figure which shows an example of the failure history table shown in FIG. It is a figure which shows an example of the notification destination determination table shown in FIG. It is a flowchart of the operation of the monitoring system shown in FIG. 3 when the cloud failure table is updated. It is a flowchart of the operation of the monitoring system shown in FIG. 3 in the case of notifying the occurrence of a failure.

Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.

First, the configuration of the system according to the embodiment of the present invention will be described.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of the system 10 according to the present embodiment.

As shown in FIG. 1, the system 10 includes a network 20 such as a LAN (Local Area Network) of a customer of a company that manages an image forming apparatus (hereinafter referred to as a “management company”). In addition to the network 20, the system 10 can include at least one network having the same configuration as the network 20.

The network 20 includes a firewall 21 that controls communication between the inside of the network 20 and the outside of the network 20, and an image forming apparatus 22. In addition to the image forming apparatus 22, the network 20 can include at least one image forming apparatus having the same configuration as the image forming apparatus 22. The image forming apparatus in the network 20 is composed of, for example, an MFP (Multifunction Peripheral), a printer-dedicated machine, or the like, and is used by a customer of a management company.

The system 10 includes a remote management system 30 that remotely manages each image forming apparatus in the system 10. The remote management system 30 is used by a management company. The remote management system 30 may be configured by one computer or may be configured by a plurality of computers. In the following, the remote management system 30 will be described as operating on a cloud platform of a public cloud as an ICT (Information and Communication Technology) platform.

Since a large number of image forming devices can be connected to the remote management system 30 via the Internet, the ability of the server constituting the remote management system 30 increases with the increase of the image forming devices connected to the remote management system 30. , Will be expanded flexibly. Further, in the cloud platform on which the remote management system 30 operates, a part of the system may go down at a timing that the remote management system 30 does not know due to a system failure or maintenance of the cloud platform. Therefore, in order to ensure stable operation of the remote management system 30, the remote management system 30 needs to receive appropriate measures when a failure occurs in a component of the remote management system 30 itself. Therefore, the remote management system 30 needs to receive appropriate measures. 30 its own components need to be monitored.

The system 10 includes a cloud provider server 40, which is an end point provided by a provider of a cloud platform on which the remote management system 30 operates.

The system 10 includes a monitoring system 50 that monitors the remote management system 30. The monitoring system 50 is used by the management company. The monitoring system 50 may be configured by one computer or may be configured by a plurality of computers.

Each network in the system 10, the remote management system 30, the cloud provider server 40, and the monitoring system 50 can communicate with each other via the Internet 11.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of the remote management system 30.

As shown in FIG. 2, the remote management system 30 includes a command server 31 that issues a control command to the image forming apparatus. In addition to the command server 31, the remote management system 30 can include at least one command server having the same configuration as the command server 31. When the connection with the image forming apparatus is established, the command server can issue a control command beyond the firewall to the image forming apparatus. One command server can be connected to, for example, 4000 image forming devices at the same time.

The remote management system 30 processes the information necessary for managing the image forming apparatus transmitted from the image forming apparatus connected beyond the firewall, and connects to an appropriate command server for the image forming apparatus. It is provided with a device management server 32 instructing to establish. Here, the appropriate command server is, for example, the command server having the smallest number of image forming devices for which a connection is established. In addition to the device management server 32, the remote management system 30 can include at least one device management server having the same configuration as the device management server 32. One device management server can perform processing on, for example, 2000 image forming devices per minute.

The remote management system 30 includes a load balancer 33 that distributes the load by allocating the information necessary for managing the image forming apparatus transmitted from the image forming apparatus connected beyond the firewall to an appropriate device management server. ing.

The remote management system 30 manages operations for performing various remote operations of the image forming apparatus such as acquisition of various information from the image forming apparatus, updating of control software of the image forming apparatus, and various settings of the image forming apparatus. It is equipped with a user management server 34 that accepts from users such as service persons of vendors. The command server maintains the image forming apparatus by transmitting the operation received by the user management server 34 to the image forming apparatus as a control command.

The remote management system 30 includes a database 35 and a cache server 36 that store various information collected from the image forming apparatus by the command server, such as a print counter of the image forming apparatus and information on authentication of the image forming apparatus.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram of the monitoring system 50 in the case of being configured by one computer.

The monitoring system 50 shown in FIG. 3 is an operation unit 51 which is an operation device such as a keyboard and a mouse into which various operations are input, and a display device such as an LCD (Liquid Crystal Disk play) which displays various information. Stores various information with the display unit 52, a communication unit 53 which is a communication device that directly communicates with an external device via a network such as a LAN or the Internet, or directly by wire or wirelessly without a network. For example, it includes a storage unit 54 which is a non-volatile storage device such as a semiconductor memory and an HDD (Hard Disk Drive), and a control unit 55 which controls the entire monitoring system 50.

The storage unit 54 stores a monitoring program 54a for monitoring the remote management system 30 (see FIG. 2). The monitoring program 54a may be installed in the monitoring system 50 at the manufacturing stage of the monitoring system 50, or may be installed on an external device such as a CD (Compact Disk), a DVD (Digital Versaille Disk), or a USB (Universal Serial Bus) memory. It may be additionally installed in the monitoring system 50 from the storage medium, or may be additionally installed in the monitoring system 50 from the network.

The storage unit 54 stores a processing table 54b showing processing according to a failure. The control unit 55 can update the processing table 54b in response to an instruction via the operation unit 51 or the communication unit 53.

The storage unit 54 can store a cloud failure table 54c indicating a failure that has occurred in the cloud platform on which the remote management system 30 operates.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing an example of the cloud failure table 54c.

The cloud failure table 54c shown in FIG. 4 is generated based on the failure information collected from the cloud platform on which the remote management system 30 operates. The cloud failure table 54c shown in FIG. 4 shows the original text of the failure contents collected from the cloud platform on which the remote management system 30 operates, the location of the failure, the area where the failure occurred, the failure code indicating the failure, and the failure. The start date and time and the end date and time of the failure are shown for each failure.

As shown in FIG. 3, the storage unit 54 can store the temporary management table 54d for temporarily managing the failure that has occurred in the remote management system 30.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing an example of the temporary management table 54d.

In the temporary management table 54d shown in FIG. 5, the original text of the contents of the failure collected from the remote management system 30, the location of the failure, the area where the failure occurred, the importance of the failure, and the cause of the failure are the remote management system 30. It shows the location of the cause of the failure, the date and time when the failure was detected, and the degree of similarity with other failures that occurred in the past, which indicates whether the cause is internal or external. In the temporary management table 54d shown in FIG. 5, the importance of the failure whose detection date and time is “2018/09/22 15:00”, the location of the factor, and the similarity are omitted.

As shown in FIG. 3, the storage unit 54 can store the failure history table 54e showing the history of failures that have occurred in the remote management system 30.

FIG. 6 is a diagram showing an example of the failure history table 54e.

The failure history table 54e shown in FIG. 6 shows the original text of the contents of the failure collected from the remote management system 30, the location of the failure, the area where the failure occurred, the importance of the failure, the location of the cause of the failure, and the failure. The date and time of detection of the above and the degree of similarity with other failures that have occurred in the past are shown for each failure.

As shown in FIG. 3, the storage unit 54 can store the notification destination determination table 54f for determining the notification destination of the occurrence of a failure.

FIG. 7 is a diagram showing an example of the notification destination determination table 54f.

The notification destination determination table 54f shown in FIG. 7 is a combination of the location of the failure, the area where the failure occurred, the importance of the failure, the location of the cause of the failure, and the similarity with other failures that have occurred in the past. It indicates the notification destination of the occurrence of the failure and the content of the notification of the occurrence of the failure for each condition of the notification of the occurrence of the failure. Here, in the notification destination determination table 54f, a range may be set such that the importance of the failure is 50 or more and less than 60. In the notification destination determination table 54f, the range of similarity may be set in the same manner as the importance. Further, in the notification destination determination table 54f, the location of the cause of the failure may be set separately depending on whether it is inside or outside the remote management system 30, or inside or outside the remote management system 30. However, it may be set to be good. In the notification destination determination table 54f shown in FIG. 7, the “factors” of the notification conditions in which the location, the area of occurrence, the importance and the similarity are “System A”, “US”, “50 or more and less than 60” and “60”, respectively. The "location" is set so that it may be inside or outside the remote management system 30.

The control unit 55 shown in FIG. 3 can update the notification destination determination table 54f in response to an instruction via the operation unit 51 or the communication unit 53.

The control unit 55 includes, for example, a CPU (Central Processing Unit), a ROM (Read Only Memory) that stores programs and various data, and a RAM (Random) as a memory used as a work area of the CPU of the control unit 55. It is equipped with an Access Memory). The CPU of the control unit 55 executes the program stored in the storage unit 54 or the ROM of the control unit 55.

The control unit 55 includes an information acquisition unit 56 that acquires information from the components of the system 10 by executing the monitoring program 54a, an information analysis unit 57 that analyzes the information acquired by the information acquisition unit 56, and information analysis. A result notification unit 58 for notifying the result of analysis by the unit 57 is realized.

The information acquisition unit 56 includes an information acquisition adapter 56a, which is a module for acquiring information from the components of the system 10. Here, the components of the system 10 include the image forming apparatus in the system 10, the components of the remote management system 30, and the cloud provider server 40. Further, the components of the remote management system 30 include a command server, a device management server, a user management server 34, a database 35, and a cache server 36. In addition to the information acquisition adapter 56a, the information acquisition unit 56 can include at least one information acquisition adapter having the same configuration as the information acquisition adapter 56a. The information acquired from the image forming apparatus by the information acquisition adapter is, for example, information as to whether or not the image forming apparatus is stopped, or information on an error that has occurred in the image forming apparatus. The information acquired from the component of the remote management system 30 by the information acquisition adapter is, for example, information on whether or not this component is stopped, or information on an error that has occurred in this component. The information acquired from the cloud provider server 40 by the information acquisition adapter is information on whether or not this cloud platform is operating normally, for example, information related to maintenance of the cloud platform on which the remote management system 30 operates.

At least one of the components of the system 10, such as the image forming apparatus, the command server, the device management server, the user management server 34, the database 35, the cache server 36, and the cloud provider server 40 in the system 10, is the monitoring system 50. An agent for outputting information may be installed. The agent can output the information for debugging the installed component and the information regarding the more detailed operating status of the installed component to the monitoring system 50.

The information acquisition unit 56 includes an information acquisition processing unit 56b that acquires information by an information acquisition adapter. Since the information acquisition function of the information acquisition unit 56 is constructed by the information acquisition adapter, the information acquisition function can be flexibly expanded in accordance with the function expansion of the remote management system 30. Therefore, the monitoring system 50 can minimize the changes associated with the functional expansion of the remote management system 30.

The information analysis unit 57 acquires the logic of information distribution acquired by the information acquisition unit 56 by the logic generation unit 57a and the information acquisition unit 56, which generate the logic of distribution by known learning algorithms such as machine learning, neurocomputing, and deep learning. It is provided with an information distribution unit 57b that distributes the generated information according to the logic generated by the logic generation unit 57a. As the information distribution logic generated by the logic generation unit 57a, for example, the information distribution logic according to the time series, the information distribution logic according to the importance of the failure, and the similarity between the failures that have occurred in the past are similar. There is a logic for distributing information according to the above, and a logic for distributing information according to whether or not a failure has occurred at the same time in other components.

The information analysis unit 57 includes a failure detection unit 57c that detects a failure of the remote management system 30 based on the information distributed by the information distribution unit 57b. For example, the information analysis unit 57 establishes communication between the image forming apparatus and the remote management system 30 based on the information acquired from the image forming apparatus in the system 10 and the information acquired from the components of the remote management system 30. It is possible to detect whether or not it is done. Further, the information analysis unit 57 correctly performs remote control of the image forming apparatus by the remote management system 30 based on the information acquired from the image forming apparatus in the system 10 and the information acquired from the components of the remote management system 30. It is possible to detect whether or not it has been damaged. Further, the information analysis unit 57 can detect whether or not the cloud platform on which the remote management system 30 operates is operating normally based on the information acquired from the cloud provider server 40.

The information analysis unit 57 includes a processing determination unit 57d that determines the processing associated with the failure detected by the failure detection unit 57c in the processing table 54b. The processing determined by the processing determination unit 57d includes, for example, restarting the remote management system 30, scaling out the cloud platform on which the remote management system 30 operates, maintaining the data of the database 35, increasing the capacity of the database 35, and remote control. There is a disconnection of the server in which a problem has occurred in the management system 30.

When the failure analyzed by the information analysis unit 57 satisfies the condition set in the notification destination determination table 54f, the result notification unit 58 notifies the notification set in the notification destination determination table 54f according to the failure. First, a message transmission adapter 58a, which is a module for transmitting a message indicating this failure, is provided. For example, the result notification unit 58 may send a message indicating the occurrence of a failure whose importance is lower than a specific importance only to a technician who can take appropriate measures for the remote management system 30. It is good to manage the image forming apparatus as well as the technician who can take appropriate measures against the remote management system 30 to send a message indicating the occurrence of a failure of higher importance than a specific importance. It may be sent to a wider range of stakeholders, such as a sales company.

The result notification unit 58 is a command transmission adapter 58b which is a module for transmitting a command for processing determined by the processing determination unit 57d to the remote management system 30 or the cloud provider server 40 whichever is suitable for this command. It is equipped with.

The result notification unit 58 includes a notification processing unit 58c that controls a message transmission adapter 58a and a command transmission adapter 58b. Since the notification function of the result notification unit 58 is constructed by modules such as the message transmission adapter 58a and the command transmission adapter 58b, the notification function is flexibly expanded according to the function expansion of the remote management system 30. be able to. Therefore, the monitoring system 50 can minimize the changes associated with the functional expansion of the remote management system 30.

Next, the operation of the monitoring system 50 when updating the cloud failure table 54c will be described.

FIG. 8 is a flowchart of the operation of the monitoring system 50 when the cloud failure table 54c is updated.

The control unit 55 of the monitoring system 50 executes the operation shown in FIG. 8 at a specific timing such as a periodic timing such as every second.

As shown in FIG. 8, the information acquisition unit 56 attempts to collect information on a failure that has occurred in the cloud platform on which the remote management system 30 operates from the cloud provider server 40 (S101).

Next, the failure detection unit 57c determines whether or not the failure information has been collected in S101 (S102).

When the failure detection unit 57c determines in S102 that the failure information has been collected, the failure information collected in S101 is added to the cloud failure table 54c (S103).

When the failure detection unit 57c determines in S102 that the failure information has not been collected, or when the processing of S103 is completed, the failure detection unit 57c ends the operation shown in FIG.

Next, the operation of the monitoring system 50 when notifying the occurrence of a failure will be described.

FIG. 9 is a flowchart of the operation of the monitoring system 50 when notifying the occurrence of a failure.

The control unit 55 of the monitoring system 50 executes the operation shown in FIG. 9 at a specific timing such as a periodic timing such as every second.

As shown in FIG. 9, the information acquisition processing unit 56b attempts to collect information from the image forming apparatus in the system 10 and the components of the remote management system 30 (S121).

Next, the failure detection unit 57c determines whether or not the information indicating the failure of the remote management system 30 has been collected in S121 (S122).

When the failure detection unit 57c determines in S122 that the information indicating the failure of the remote management system 30 has not been collected, the failure detection unit 57c ends the operation shown in FIG.

When the failure detection unit 57c determines in S122 that the information indicating the failure of the remote management system 30 has been collected, the failure detection unit 57c adds the failure information determined in S122 to be collected to the temporary management table 54d (S123). Here, the failure added to the temporary management table 54d in S123 is important, such as the failure whose detection date and time shown in FIG. 5 is "2018/09/22 15:00" immediately after the processing of S123 is completed. Degrees, factors and similarities are not yet remembered.

The fault detection unit 57c has another fault that has occurred in the past based on the fault information added to the temporary management table 54d in S123 after the processing of S123 and the past fault information shown in the fault history table 54e. The similarity of the failure added to the temporary management table 54d in S123 is determined according to a specific determination method (S124). The determination method in S124 may be, for example, a method using known statistical processing or a known learning algorithm such as machine learning, neurocomputing, or deep learning.

After the processing of S124, the failure detection unit 57c adds the similarity determined in S124 to the failure information added to the temporary management table 54d in S123 (S125).

Next, the failure detection unit 57c determines the importance of the failure added to the temporary management table 54d in S123 according to a specific determination method (S126). The determination method in S126 may be, for example, a method of determining according to a specific rule based on at least one of the occurrence location of the failure and the frequency of occurrence of the failure.

After the processing of S126, the failure detection unit 57c adds the importance determined in S126 to the failure information added to the temporary management table 54d in S123 (S127).

Next, the failure detection unit 57c corresponds to the failure added to the temporary management table 54d in S123 based on the failure information added to the temporary management table 54d in S123 and the failure information shown in the cloud failure table 54c. It is determined whether or not the failure is related to the failure shown in the cloud failure table 54c, that is, the failure of the cloud platform on which the remote management system 30 operates (S128). That is, when the failure location, the occurrence area, and the detection date and time of the failure added to the temporary management table 54d in S123 are included in the information of any of the failures shown in the cloud failure table 54c, the failure detection unit 57c temporarily manages the failure in S123. In S128, it is determined that the failure added to the table 54d is related to the failure shown in the cloud failure table 54c. For example, in the failure detection unit 57c, the location, the occurrence area, and the detection date and time shown in FIG. 5 are “Service A”, “US”, and “2018/09/22 15:00”, respectively. The original text, the area of occurrence, the start date and time, and the end date and time are "A failure occurred in service A.", "US", "2018/09/22 14:00" and "2018/09/22 16:00", respectively. Judge that it is related to a certain disorder.

Since it may take some time for the failure of the cloud platform on which the remote management system 30 operates to be reflected in the cloud failure table 54c, the failure detection unit 57c has elapsed a specific time after the processing of S127. After that, the process of S128 may be executed.

When the failure detection unit 57c determines in S128 that the failure corresponding to the failure added to the temporary management table 54d in S123 is related to the failure of the cloud platform on which the remote management system 30 operates, the cause of the failure is the remote management system 30. The fact that it is due to the outside is stored as the location of the cause of the failure added to the temporary management table 54d in S123 (S129).

When the failure detection unit 57c determines in S128 that the failure corresponding to the failure added to the temporary management table 54d in S123 is not related to the failure of the cloud platform on which the remote management system 30 operates, the cause of the failure is the remote management system 30. The fact that it is due to the inside of the above is stored as the location of the cause of the failure added to the temporary management table 54d in S123 (S130).

After the processing of S129 or S130, the failure detection unit 57c moves the failure added to the temporary management table 54d in S123 to the failure history table 54e (S131). That is, the failure detection unit 57c reflects all the information of the failure added to the temporary management table 54d in S123 at the present time to the failure history table 54e, and all the information of the failure added to the temporary management table 54d in S123 at the present time. Information is deleted from the temporary management table 54d.

After the processing of S131, the notification processing unit 58c determines the failure moved to the failure history table 54e in S131 based on the failure information moved to the failure history table 54e in S131 and the notification destination determination table 54f. On the other hand, the notification destination of the occurrence of the failure and the notification content of the occurrence of the failure set in the notification destination determination table 54f are determined (S132). That is, the notification processing unit 58c includes the location of the failure, the area where the failure occurred, the importance of the failure, the location of the cause of the failure, and other failures that have occurred in the past, which are shown in the notification destination determination table 54f. From the combination with the similarity of the above, the location of the failure moved to the failure history table 54e in S131, the area where the failure occurred, the importance of the failure, the location of the cause of the failure, and other points that occurred in the past. The combination corresponding to the similarity with the failure is specified, and the notification destination of the occurrence of the failure and the notification content of the occurrence of the failure shown in the notification destination determination table 54f for the specified combination are determined. For example, the notification processing unit 58c may notify only a technician who can take appropriate measures to the remote management system 30 as a notification destination for a failure whose importance is lower than a specific importance. For failures of higher severity than a particular importance, there is a wider range of interests, not only for technicians who can take appropriate action on the remote management system 30, but also for distributors who manage image forming equipment. The person concerned may be the notification destination.

After the processing of S132, the notification processing unit 58c notifies the notification destination determined in S132 with the notification content determined in S132 (S133). Here, the notification processing unit 58c may include various information in the failure history table 54e regarding the failure moved to the failure history table 54e in S131 in the notification content to be notified in S133.

After the processing of S133, the notification processing unit 58c is moved to the failure history table 54e in S131 to determine whether or not the location of the cause of the failure moved to the failure history table 54e in S131 is outside the remote management system 30. Judgment is made based on the location of the cause of the failure (S134).

When the notification processing unit 58c determines in S134 that the location of the cause of the failure moved to the failure history table 54e in S131 is outside the remote management system 30, the notification processing unit 58c determines to the provider of the cloud platform on which the remote management system 30 operates. Then, a support request for notifying the content of the failure is issued (S135).

The notification processing unit 58c determines in S134 that the location of the cause of the failure moved to the failure history table 54e in S131 is not outside the remote management system 30, or when the processing of S135 is completed, the operation shown in FIG. 9 is performed. finish.

As described above, when a failure occurs in the remote management system 30 (YES in S122), the monitoring system 50 sends the failure of the remote management system 30 to an appropriate notification destination according to the severity of the failure. Since the notification (S132 to S133) is given, appropriate measures can be taken for the remote management system 30. Therefore, the monitoring system 50 can improve the stability of the remote management of the image forming apparatus by the remote management system 30.

Since the monitoring system 50 detects a failure of the remote management system 30 based on not only the information acquired from the remote management system 30 but also the information acquired from the image forming apparatus (S121 to S122), the failure of the remote management system 30 The accuracy of detection can be improved.

Since the monitoring system 50 detects a failure of the remote management system 30 based on not only the information acquired from the remote management system 30 but also the information acquired from the cloud platform on which the remote management system 30 operates (S121 to S122), the monitoring system 50 detects the failure of the remote management system 30. The accuracy of failure detection of the remote management system 30 can be improved.

When the cause of the failure of the remote management system 30 is a failure of the cloud platform (YES in S134), the monitoring system 50 makes a support request to the cloud platform provider to notify the content of the failure. Issuing (S135) increases the possibility that appropriate measures will be taken for the cloud platform on which the remote management system 30 operates, and as a result, improves the stability of remote management of the image forming apparatus by the remote management system 30. can do.

When the location of the cause of the failure of the remote management system 30 is outside the remote management system 30 (YES in S134), the monitoring system 50 causes a failure to the provider of the cloud platform on which the remote management system 30 operates. Since a support request for notifying the contents is issued (S135), it is possible to encourage the cloud platform provider to quickly recover from the failure of the cloud platform. However, the monitoring system 50 may end the operation shown in FIG. 9 without executing the processes of S134 and S135 after the process of S133.

In the present embodiment, the conditions for notifying the occurrence of a failure in the notification destination determination table 54f include the location of the failure, the area where the failure occurred, the importance of the failure, the location of the cause of the failure, and the location of the cause of the failure in the past. Includes similarity to other disorders. However, the conditions for notification of the occurrence of a failure are at least the location of the failure, the area of the failure, the importance of the failure, the location of the cause of the failure, and the similarity to other failures that have occurred in the past. One may not be included.

In the present embodiment, the monitoring system 50 is realized by a computer different from the remote management system 30. However, at least some computers that realize the remote management system 30 and at least some computers that realize the monitoring system 50 may be the same.

22 Image forming device 30 Remote management system 50 Monitoring system (computer)
54a Monitoring program 56 Information acquisition department 57 Information analysis department 58 Result notification department

Claims (4)

An information acquisition unit that acquires information from a remote management system that remotely manages an image forming device,
The information analysis unit that analyzes the information acquired by the information acquisition unit,
It is equipped with a result notification unit that notifies the result of analysis by the information analysis unit.
The information analysis unit detects a failure of the remote management system based on the information acquired by the information acquisition unit, and determines the importance of the failure.
The result notification unit is characterized in that a failure of the remote management system detected by the information analysis unit is notified to a notification destination set in association with the importance determined by the information analysis unit. Monitoring system. The information acquisition unit also acquires information from the ICT platform on which the remote management system operates.
The information analysis unit determines whether or not the detected cause of the failure of the remote management system is due to the failure of the ICT infrastructure, based on the information acquired by the information acquisition unit.
When the information analysis unit determines that the cause of the failure of the remote management system is due to the failure of the ICT infrastructure, the result notification unit makes a support request for notifying the content of the failure. The monitoring system according to claim 1, wherein the system is issued to a provider of the infrastructure. The monitoring system according to claim 1 or 2, wherein the information acquisition unit also acquires information from the image forming apparatus. An information acquisition unit that acquires information from a remote management system that remotely manages an image forming device,
The information analysis unit that analyzes the information acquired by the information acquisition unit,
A computer is equipped with a result notification unit that notifies the results of analysis by the information analysis unit.
The information analysis unit detects a failure of the remote management system based on the information acquired by the information acquisition unit, and determines the importance of the failure.
The result notification unit is characterized in that a failure of the remote management system detected by the information analysis unit is notified to a notification destination set in association with the importance determined by the information analysis unit. Monitoring program.

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