JP2001148706A - Device and method for information processing and storage medium - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To solve the problem that the consistency between the states of computer relative devices and the records of a document needs to be properly checked in the case of change in installation place or administrator and the disposal of a device due to its break and much trouble is needed as the number of devices increases when the computer relative devices are managed by using the document. SOLUTION: Pieces of characteristic information on devices 100, 200, and 300 which are connected to a network are obtained in the timing of bus resetting, etc., and stored in a memory 402, and the correspondence relation to additional information regarding a device which is stored in a memory 403 is investigated.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus and method, and a storage medium, and more particularly to an information processing apparatus and method for managing devices such as networked information processing equipment. .

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Devices, which are computer-related devices corresponding to an IEEE1394 serial bus (hereinafter referred to as "1394 serial bus"), each have a configuration ROM (ConfigROM) conforming to the IEEE1212 standard in order to hold device-specific information. ). The information stored in the ConfigROM includes information on devices, information on corresponding protocols, and the like.

On the other hand, in consideration of management of computer-related devices, it is necessary to associate specific information corresponding to the management form with those devices. For example, if a company department uses a large number of computer-related devices, the information necessary for management, such as the names of those departments, the locations where the devices are installed, and the users and their contact information, is generally a form such as a form. Is managed by Then, at the time of stocktaking or the like, the correspondence between the actual condition of the computer-related device and the device recorded in the form is confirmed.

[0004]

However, the situation of the computer-related equipment fluctuates, for example, the installation location is changed, the administrator is changed, or the equipment recorded in the form is damaged and discarded. Therefore, when managing computer-related devices by using a form, it is necessary to appropriately check the consistency between the status of the device and the record of the form, and when the number of devices increases, it becomes extremely time-consuming. Even if the management is performed with great effort, it is impossible to know in real time whether or not the device is actually functioning.

An object of the present invention is to solve the above-mentioned problem, and an object of the present invention is to provide an information processing apparatus and a method thereof that can easily manage networked devices.

It is another object of the present invention to provide an information processing apparatus and a method thereof that can easily obtain the operation status of a networked device.

[0007]

The present invention has the following configuration as one means for achieving the above object.

[0008] An information processing apparatus according to the present invention is an information processing apparatus for collecting information on devices connected to a network, comprising: acquiring means for acquiring specific information of the device at a predetermined timing and storing the information in a memory; Input means for inputting additional information about the device and storing it in a memory;
Investigation means for investigating a correspondence between the unique information stored in the memory and the additional information is provided.

Further, the input means includes status information indicating the operation status of the device in the additional information, and the investigation means sets the status information based on the unique information acquired by the acquisition means. I do.

An information processing method according to the present invention is an information processing method for collecting information on a device connected to a network. The information processing device acquires specific information of the device at a predetermined timing, stores the information in a memory, and adds information on the device. Information is input and stored in a memory, and a correspondence between the unique information and the additional information stored in the memory is examined.

Further, in the inputting step, the additional information includes status information indicating an operation state of the device, and the status information is set based on the unique information acquired in the acquiring step in the investigating step. And

[0012]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Hereinafter, an image processing apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings.

[IEEE1212] First, IEEE1212 which is an addressing standard of the 1394 serial bus will be described.

In the 1394 serial bus, the addressing rules of IEEE1212 are applied. The addressing rules of IEEE1212 define a 64-bit wide address space.
Each device connected to the 94 serial bus uses a portion of this address space.

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing address assignment specified by IEEE1212. 64-bit address first
The 10 bits are the Bus ID, which is used to identify multiple buses. The next 6 bits are the Node ID, which corresponds to each device on the bus. The remaining 48 bits are the address space that each device can use uniquely. Of the 48-bit space, a space in which the first 20 bits are FFFFFh (28-bit space) is defined as a register space, and is used for information exchange between devices. The first of the register space
1 Kbyte is CSR (Command / Status R) defined by IEEE1212.
egister) used for architecture and serial bus registers. The subsequent 1 Kbyte stores detailed information of each device as described later as ConfigROM.

FIGS. 2 and 3 show the format of ConfigROM. FIG. 2 shows ConfigROM defined as a minimum.
3 (Minimal ROM Format), and FIG. 3 shows a ConfigROM format (Gene
ral ROM Format). In the embodiment described later, the description will be made assuming the general format shown in FIG.

In FIG. 3, the bus_info_block includes a vendor I
Bus information such as D is stored. That is, bus_info_bloc
The node_vendor_id field of k is assigned a unique ID for the vendor, followed by chip_id_hi (8 bits) and chip_id
The 64-bit address combined with _lo (32 bits) is node_
Unique_ID is uniquely defined for all devices.

The information under the root_directory following the bus_info_block has a logical directory structure shown in FIG. Module_Vendor_ID or Node_Capab for root_directory
Information corresponding to Node such as ilities is stored, and unit_
In the directory, information of a protocol corresponding to the device, such as Unit_Spec_ID or Unit_Sw_Version, is stored. unit_d
There can be more than one irectory depending on the corresponding protocol. This structure depends on the device.

[XML] Next, XML (Extensible Markup Language) which is a data format of a hyperlink format will be described.

XML has been developed mainly as a description language for documents or data used on the Internet.
The XML Version 1.0 has been standardized as a recommendation by the Wide Web Consortium. The features of XML are described below.

An XML document is HTML (Hyper Text Markup Lang).
uage) Like a document, it is described using tags, but HTML
Unlike the original tag can be provided. Figures 5 and 6
Is a diagram for explaining the structure of an XML document, and FIG. 6 shows information of a structure as shown in FIG. 5 expressed in XML.

FIG. 6 is an XML document representing employee information of a certain company. The employee has attributes of “sex”, “age”, and “employee code”, and has information of “name”, “entering date”, and “character”. Furthermore, "Name" is "Last name"
And "Name", and "Joining date" is managed by date. Information of hobbies and special skills is registered in the “character”. In addition, the attribute of the “character” includes a link to the employee's personal Web site.

FIG. 5 shows the parent-child relationship of the information elements shown in FIG. 6 in a tree structure. Elements that can have a plurality of elements are indicated by double frames. Also,
A rectangle with rounded corners represents an attribute of an adjacent element, and an element accompanied by a parallelogram represents a linked element. In XML, unlike HTML, all elements can be linked elements (linking elements), not just anchor tags (A tags). The detailed definition of the link is defined not by XML but by the specifications of XLink and XPointer, which are specifications related to the link of XML. This content is under consideration by the W3C.

As described above, in XML, not only the notation format but also its “meaning” can be defined as an element.
By sharing the same format on a server on the Internet or between a server and a client, it is possible to easily exchange data and grasp the latest data.
As described above, in the XML document, unique tags can be defined for various uses, and information can be exchanged and managed according to the definitions.

[Information Server] FIG. 7 is a block diagram showing a configuration example of an information server (hereinafter abbreviated as “InfoSV”) 400 of the present embodiment connected to a 1394 serial bus.

ConfigROM 401 exists in InfoSV400, and 139
4 Devices 100, 200 and 300 connected to the serial bus
ConfigROMs 101, 201, and 301 also exist. Further, in addition to ConfigROM401, ConfigRO of all devices existing on the serial bus including itself is included in InfoSV400.
There is a storage area 402 for storing M information in an XML format, and a storage area 4 for storing additional information about a device in an XML format.
03 exists.

The InfoSV 400 has a module 4 for processing information when additional information 501 for a device is input.
10. There are a module 420 that acquires ConfigROM information of each device and stores it in the storage area 402, a module 430 that integrates each data, and a module 440 that appropriately displays data on the display device 600 according to its type. The input device 500 such as a keyboard and the display device 600 such as a monitor are
Connected to SV400.

In the following description, information stored in each storage area is expressed by adding i to the end of a code of the storage area or the like. For example, ConfigROM101 of device 100
Is represented by 101i.

Next, the tree structure of data stored in each storage area of InfoSV400 will be described.

FIG. 8 is a diagram showing an example of a tree structure of the additional information 403i on the device. Additional information 501 is input to InfoSV400 by an operation of the operator, and is stored in storage area 403 as additional information 403i on the device. The parent element of the additional information 403i about the device is the “bus” element,
Elements such as “administrative department name” and “location” are defined as the child elements. "Device" defined as a child element
There are as many elements as the number of devices connected to the target device of the additional information 403i on the device, and the id that uniquely identifies each "device" element is node_unique_ID defined in ConfigROM. The “Device” element includes a flag “Status F” indicating whether the presence of the device has been confirmed by reading the latest ConfigROM.
LG "attribute is defined.

FIG. 9 shows an example of an XML document corresponding to the tree structure shown in FIG. The example in FIG. 9 shows devices that are managed by the “system first management room” and are called “common printer 1” and “common printer 2” in “A building 10th floor 2”. The administrator of "Common Printer 1" is "Onishi", and the contact information of the administrator is "ohnisihi @ aa
a.bb.co.jp "and" configr.
om.xml # AAAAAAAAAA000000 "is linked. The administrator of "Common Printer 2" is "Tanaka", the contact information of the administrator is "tanaka@aaa.bb.co.jp", and "configrom.xml # AAAAAAAAAA000001" for "Common Printer 2". Is linked.

FIG. 10 is a diagram showing an example of a tree structure of the ConfigROM information 402i. The tree structure of ConfigROM is different for each device. This information 402i is defined in the ConfigROM and is defined as an attribute of the root element "ConfigROM".
Identified by ique_id. ConfigROM root_directo
Module_Vendor_Id defined as an entry in ry is mapped as a child element of the root element “ConfigROM”. Furthermore, child directories such as unit_directory are also defined as child elements, and contents such as Unit_Spec_Id are further mapped as child elements of unit_directory. It is also possible to define an ID attribute for each of these directories. In the future, even if a new directory is defined, mapping can be performed by adding child elements in the same way.

[Module] Next, the processing executed by each module of InfoSV400 will be described in detail.

FIG. 11 is a flowchart showing an example of the processing procedure of the ConfigROM information acquisition module 420. The ConfigROM information acquisition module 420 is started at a bus reset or periodically at an appropriate timing, and executes the processing shown in FIG.

In step S101, the ConfigROM information storage area 402
Is cleared, ID = 0 is set in step S102, and in step S103, the Config is transmitted from the device having the node ID corresponding to the ID.
Get ROM information. Then, in step S104, the acquired ConfigROM information is converted into an XML format, and
In S105, it is recorded in the ConfigROM storage area 402. Step S1
In the determination of step 06, it is determined whether or not the processing of steps S103 to S105 has been completed for all devices connected to the 1394 serial bus. If the processing has not been completed, the ID is incremented in step S107. It returns to step S103. On the other hand, if the processing is completed, the ConfigROM information of all devices connected to the 1394 serial bus is stored in the ConfigROM information storage area.
The process is terminated because the data has been stored in 402.

FIG. 12 is a flowchart showing an example of the processing procedure of the integration module 430.

In step S201, additional information about the device
The Status FLG attribute of all the “device” elements of 403i is cleared, and in step S202, “Co” of the latest ConfigROM information 402i acquired by the ConfigROM information acquisition module 420
Read out one id attribute of "nfigROM" element. The reading of the id attribute may be performed in any order (ascending order, descending order, or random order).

Next, in step S203, it is checked whether or not a "device" element having an id attribute matching the read id exists in the additional information 403i on the device. If such a device exists, it means that the device has been registered before and is still connected and operating.
Set the Status FLG attribute of the 3i "device" element.

If such a device does not exist, the device is a device that has not been registered before and is newly registered this time. Is added, and its child elements, "name", "administrator", and "administrator contact", are added, and in step S206, its Status FLG attribute is set. The content of the added element is empty because it has not been input. Further, in step S207, the id read to the added “device” element is set as a link destination, that is, Co
A link to the nfigROM information 402i is added.

Next, in step S208, all "Config"
It is determined whether or not the id attribute of the “ROM” element has been read, and if not, the process returns to step S203. If it is completed, at this stage, the Status F of the "device" element that does not exist in the ConfigROM information 402i but exists in the additional information 403i about the device
The LG attribute has been cleared. In other words, a device that was previously connected and registered but is not currently connected
The Status FLG attribute has been cleared.

When the above processing is completed, step S209
Instruct the display module to link and display the ConfigROM information 402i and the additional information 403i about the device.
Issued to 440.

Display Module FIG. 13 is a flowchart showing an example of the processing procedure of the display module 440.

In step S301, the requested information is
From the storage area 402 of the ConfigROM information and / or the storage area 403 of the additional information regarding the device, the information is read out from the storage area 402 and displayed on the display device 600 in step S302 according to its structure. Specifically, XML
Can be used for the display module 440. FIG. 14 is a diagram illustrating an example of additional information regarding a device displayed by the display module 440.

As shown in FIG. 14, the operation status of a device that has been connected and registered before and is still connected is “operating”, and the operation status of a device that is not currently connected is “inactive”. "become.

[Input Module] FIG. 15 is a flowchart showing an example of the processing procedure of the input module 410 for inputting additional information relating to a device.

In step S401, information is read from the storage area 403 for additional information relating to the device, and in step S402
Then, the display module 440 is instructed to display the read information. FIG. 16 is a diagram showing an example of the display state. In the case of FIG. 16, since no additional information has been entered for the device on the last line, the device name, administrator, and administrator contact fields are empty.

If it is determined in step S403 that the input completion has been instructed by the operator, the process ends. Otherwise, in step S404, the operator inputs the additional information via the input device 500 such as a keyboard based on the displayed additional information on the device.
The input additional information is stored in the additional information storage area 403 regarding the device in step S405. Devices for which additional information can be input include device names,
Not only devices with empty admin and admin contact fields,
Additional information of other devices can be rewritten. It goes without saying that the display shown in FIG. 16 is also updated by the input additional information.

As described above, according to the present embodiment, the ConfigROM information of the device connected to the 1394 serial bus
By integrating and managing additional information related to those devices using a hypertext document using XML, etc.,
In departments where a large number of computer-related devices are used, it is possible to easily manage the information necessary for managing such devices, such as the installation location of those devices, the manager (user) and their contact information, It is possible to easily obtain the operation status of the device.

[0049]

[Modification] Although the embodiment using XML has been described above, it is also possible to use HTML instead of XML.
However, when using HTML, it is necessary to take measures such as diverting tags specified in HTML so as to meet the purpose of the embodiment. One example is shown in FIG.

The HTML document shown in FIG. 17 is an HTML document of the XML document shown in FIG. 9, in which the root element is described by a <title> tag, and the elements having child elements are described in accordance with the depth of the hierarchy. <
h1><h2> ... tags, attributes are <ul> tags, and elements that do not have child elements are indicated by <ol> tags. In the example shown in FIG. 17, since the content having a meaning different from the original tag is described, it is necessary to consider the order in which the tag appears in order to distinguish them. Further, it is necessary to insert an anchor tag as a link destination in the element of the ConfigROM information shown in FIG.

In the above description, the embodiment in which the computer-related equipment (device) is networked by the 1394 serial bus has been described. However, the present invention is not limited to the type of network. If the device is equipped with a ROM or the like in which information unique to the device is stored, and if information unique to the device can be obtained from the ROM via a network, for example, a USB (Universal Serial Bus),
LAN such as net, and WAN such as Internet,
It can support any network.

[0052]

[Other Embodiments] Even if the present invention is applied to a system including a plurality of devices (for example, a host computer, an interface device, a reader, a printer, etc.), an apparatus (for example, a copying machine) Machine, facsimile machine, etc.).

Further, an object of the present invention is to supply a storage medium (or a recording medium) in which a program code of software for realizing the functions of the above-described embodiments is recorded to a system or an apparatus, and a computer (a computer) of the system or the apparatus. It is needless to say that the present invention can also be achieved by a CPU or an MPU) reading and executing the program code stored in the storage medium. In this case, the program code itself read from the storage medium implements the functions of the above-described embodiment, and the storage medium storing the program code constitutes the present invention. Also,
When the computer executes the readout program code, not only the functions of the above-described embodiments are realized, but also the operating system (OS) running on the computer based on the instructions of the program code.
It goes without saying that a case where the functions of the above-described embodiments are implemented by performing some or all of the actual processing, and the processing performs the functions of the above-described embodiments.

Further, after the program code read from the storage medium is written in the memory provided in the function expansion card inserted into the computer or the function expansion unit connected to the computer, the program code is read based on the instruction of the program code. Needless to say, the CPU included in the function expansion card or the function expansion unit performs part or all of the actual processing, and the processing realizes the functions of the above-described embodiments.

When the present invention is applied to the storage medium, the storage medium stores program codes corresponding to the above-described flowcharts (shown in FIGS. 11 to 13 and 15).

[0056]

As described above, according to the present invention,
An information processing apparatus and a method thereof that can easily manage networked computer-related devices can be provided.

Further, it is possible to provide an information processing apparatus and a method thereof which can easily obtain the operation status of networked computer-related equipment.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing address assignment defined by IEEE1212,

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing a format of ConfigROM,

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a format of ConfigROM,

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing a logical directory structure of information below root_directory of ConfigROM,

FIG. 5 is a view for explaining the configuration of an XML document;

FIG. 6 is a view for explaining the configuration of an XML document;

FIG. 7 is a block diagram showing a configuration example of an information server of the present embodiment connected to a 1394 serial bus;

FIG. 8 is a diagram illustrating an example of a tree structure of additional information regarding a device.

FIG. 9 is a diagram showing an example of an XML document corresponding to the tree structure shown in FIG. 8;

FIG. 10 is a diagram showing an example of a tree structure of ConfigROM information.

FIG. 11 is a flowchart illustrating an example of a processing procedure of a ConfigROM information acquisition module;

FIG. 12 is a flowchart illustrating an example of a processing procedure of an integrated module;

FIG. 13 is a flowchart illustrating an example of a processing procedure of a display module;

FIG. 14 is a diagram illustrating an example of additional information regarding a device displayed by the display module.

FIG. 15 is a flowchart illustrating an example of a processing procedure of an input module;

FIG. 16 is a diagram illustrating a display example of additional information regarding a device.

FIG. 17 is a diagram showing an example in which the XML document shown in FIG. 9 is expressed in HTML.

Claims (17)

[Claims] 1. An information processing apparatus for collecting information on a device connected to a network, comprising: acquiring means for acquiring specific information of the device at a predetermined timing and storing the information in a memory; An information processing apparatus, comprising: input means for storing the unique information and the additional information stored in the memory; and input means for storing the additional information in the memory. 2. The information processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the acquisition unit converts the acquired unique information into a hypertext format and stores the converted information in the memory. 3. The information processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the input unit converts the input additional information into a hypertext format and stores the converted information in the memory. 4. The method according to claim 1, wherein the input unit includes status information indicating an operation state of a device in the additional information, and the checking unit sets the status information based on the unique information obtained by the obtaining unit. Claim 1
An information processing device according to any one of claims 1 to 3. 5. The information processing apparatus according to claim 4, further comprising an output unit that outputs the correspondence obtained by the investigation unit and the status information. 6. The information processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the network is a serial bus conforming to or conforming to the IEEE1394 standard. 7. The information processing apparatus according to claim 6, wherein the unique information is obtained from a configuration ROM of the device. 8. The apparatus according to claim 7, wherein the investigation unit records the correspondence between the unique information and the additional information by using a device unique ID obtained from the configuration ROM. Information processing device. 9. An information processing method for collecting information of a device connected to a network, comprising: acquiring specific information of the device at a predetermined timing, storing the information in a memory, and inputting additional information regarding the device to the memory. An information processing method, comprising: storing and examining a correspondence relationship between the unique information and the additional information stored in the memory. 10. The information processing method according to claim 9, wherein the acquired unique information is converted into a hypertext format and stored in the memory. 11. The information processing method according to claim 9, wherein the input additional information is converted into a hypertext format and stored in the memory. 12. The input step, wherein the additional information includes status information indicating an operation state of a device, and the investigation step sets the status information based on unique information acquired in the acquiring step. 12. The information processing method according to claim 9, wherein: 13. The information processing method according to claim 12, further comprising outputting the correspondence obtained in the examination step and the status information. 14. The information processing method according to claim 9, wherein the network is a serial bus conforming to or conforming to the IEEE 1394 standard. 15. The device according to claim 1, wherein the unique information is obtained from a configuration ROM of the device.
The information processing method described in 4. 16. The device-specific ID obtained from the configuration ROM in the checking step
16. The information processing method according to claim 15, wherein a correspondence relationship between the unique information and the additional information is recorded by the following. 17. A storage medium storing a program code of information processing for collecting information of a device connected to a network, wherein the program code acquires at least predetermined information of the device at a predetermined timing, and A code of a step of inputting additional information related to a device and storing the same in a memory; and a code of a step of investigating a correspondence relationship between the unique information and the additional information stored in the memory. A storage medium characterized by having.