JP2003241999A - Maintenance management system - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To take a quick measure to an obstacle at a low cost by quantitatively judging the importance of the obstacle from obstacle information of a computer or the like of maintenance management object. <P>SOLUTION: In the obstacle monitoring server 104 of a maintenance management center 103 connected to the server 102 of a customer site 101 of the maintenance management object, the obstacle information collected from the customer site 101 or the like is converted to points according to the kind of obstacle, the content of a maintenance contract, and customer importance, and the importance or emergency of the obstacle is quantitatively evaluated according to the total point to rapidly, efficiently and precisely perform the shipping of a maintenance part from a maintenance part management department 108 or the determination of priority of arrangement of maintenance worker, or the like, whereby an optimum maintenance work can be automatically instructed. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2003,JPO

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to maintenance management technology, and more particularly to a technology effectively applied to a computer system having a failure notification function and its maintenance management system.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In a conventional maintenance management system, when a failure occurs in a computer at a customer site, the user contacts the maintenance center or a failure analysis window of a system management department to inform the failure content. It was often operated. With this method, information is transmitted via various departments and people until the actual disaster recovery work.
Since confirmations and instructions are given, a lot of human work intervenes, and as a result, it has been difficult to reduce the downtime of the computer.

Remote maintenance is known as a computer maintenance management system. In remote maintenance, a computer to be maintained and managed is connected to a maintenance center via a communication line, and failure analysis of the computer to be maintained and managed is performed from a remote location.

For example, according to the technique disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2001-005692, when a failure occurs in the failure monitoring target, the failure information is transferred from the monitoring terminal to the maintenance center as an e-mail, and the maintenance staff is further informed. It is automatically transferred to your mobile device. Based on that information, maintenance personnel can go to the failure site.

However, when fault information is sent from a plurality of sites to the maintenance department operated by a limited number of maintenance staff at the same time, the maintenance staff preferentially visits which site. There is a technical problem of not knowing whether to work.

Further, it must be taken into consideration that many maintenance sites are in charge of different maintenance contract contents, and the maintenance staff takes time to confirm the details. Further, in order to efficiently ship the limited maintenance parts, a complicated work involving an artificial judgment occurs.

[0007]

As described above, conventionally, there has been a technical problem that a lot of time is spent from the occurrence of a failure to the state where the failure recovery work is actually started. In addition, when a plurality of computers to be maintained and managed simultaneously fail, it is difficult to instantly determine the importance of the failure so that the maintenance staff may have difficulty in determining the priority of the failure.

An object of the present invention is to make it possible to instantly judge the importance of a failure by quantifying and evaluating the failure information sent from the customer site to the failure monitoring server of the maintenance management center in terms of points, and to take prompt action. It is to provide maintenance management technology that can be performed.

[0009]

A maintenance management system of the present invention is a failure quantification means for quantifying the failure status of an information processing system subject to maintenance management, and the urgency or importance of the failure status depending on the magnitude of the numerical value. The maintenance management control means for evaluating the degree is included.

More specifically, by way of example, the maintenance management system of the present invention is necessary for analyzing a computer system at a customer site, a fault detecting means for detecting the fault, and a fault analysis when the occurrence of the fault is detected. A failure monitoring server of a maintenance management site capable of collecting various kinds of information, means for scoring the failure information according to various elements, and means for deciding a dispatch form of maintenance personnel and a dispatch form of maintenance parts according to the score. It can be configured.

When a failure occurs in this customer's computer system, the information necessary for analyzing the failure is automatically collected in the failure monitoring server of the maintenance center.
The fault monitoring server scores the collected fault information according to some tables, and can express the importance or urgency of the fault by the level of the score or the total score. In addition, by referencing this score in the table that determines the dispatch form of maintenance personnel and the delivery form of maintenance parts, work instructions etc. are automatically sent to the maintenance personnel's mobile terminal according to the importance and urgency of the failure. Information is sent and maintenance parts are dispatched.

[0012]

BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION Embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a conceptual diagram showing an example of the configuration of a maintenance management system according to an embodiment of the present invention.

In the case of the present embodiment, a plurality of servers 102 are operating within a certain customer site 101 that is subject to maintenance management, and each server 102 is connected by a network. They are connected in a hierarchical structure.

The failure monitoring server 104 installed in the maintenance management center 103 is connected to the customer site 101 to be maintained and managed through the information network 100, and the hardware or software generated in the system of the customer site 101 is connected to the customer site 101. Built to collect all fault information. The fault monitoring server 104 is equipped with software that quantitatively evaluates fault information based on information in various tables as described later and, if necessary, determines the content of maintenance management work for restoration work. There is.

The fault monitoring server 104 can also collect fault information from other customer sites 105, and the fault information has at least the information shown in FIG. That is, in the case of the present embodiment, the failure information 201 collected from the plurality of customer sites 105 by the failure monitoring server 104 is the customer site name 202 and the machine name 20.
3, information on the type of failure 204, and the like.

Further, as shown in the configuration information table 301 in FIG. 3, the fault monitoring server 104 has a system configuration of computers and the like at all customer sites 101 and 105, which are to be subject to maintenance management, and a connection relationship between computers within the sites. It holds information necessary for maintenance such as.

That is, as an example, the configuration information table 301 shows the customer site name 3 for identifying each customer site.
01a, a machine name 301b for identifying a computer included in the customer site, an information item 301c such as a model or a component of the computer, information content 301d, and the like. The information item 301c includes a computer hierarchy 3 indicating the hierarchy position of the computer within the site.
02, maintenance contract content 303 indicating information such as an allowable time until failure recovery, and the like.

The maintenance management center 103 has the fault information 201 of each customer site collected by the fault monitoring server 104 and the computer configuration information table 30 of FIG.
Based on 1, the maintenance staff 106 can be dispatched, and at the same time, the maintenance parts management department 108 can be instructed to send the maintenance parts. The maintenance staff 106 carries out maintenance work for each customer site 101 based on information and instructions from the maintenance management center 103.
Further, the maintenance person 106 holds the mobile terminal 107 so that the instruction and information from the maintenance management center 103 can be received at any place.

As shown in FIG. 4, the fault monitoring server 104 has a fault site-based evaluation table 401 capable of converting the notified fault into a score 403 according to the fault type 402. This failure site-based evaluation table 401 is set so that the score 403 increases as the severity (or urgency) of the type of failure 402 that has occurred increases. The failure monitoring server 104 extracts the failure type 204 from the collected failure information 201, and collates it with the failure site-based evaluation table 401 to make points.

As shown in FIG. 5, the fault monitoring server 104 has a tier position evaluation table 501 capable of converting the tier 502 of a computer in which a fault has occurred into a score 503. This hierarchy position evaluation table 5
01 is set so that the score 503 becomes higher as the computer tier 502 becomes the upper tier position of the higher-ranking backbone server or the like having higher importance. The failure monitoring server 104 extracts the customer site name 202 and the machine name 203 in which the failure has occurred from the collected failure information 201 and collates them with the configuration information table 301 in FIG. 3 to obtain the computer hierarchy 302. This is collated with the hierarchical position evaluation table 501 of FIG. 5 and scored.

As shown in FIG. 6, the fault monitoring server 104 has a maintenance contract evaluation table 601 which can be converted into a score 603 according to the maintenance contract contents 602 for the computer in which the fault has occurred. In many cases, a computer maintenance contract between a customer and a maintenance management company defines a time for failure recovery (allowable time until completion of recovery). The maintenance contract evaluation table 601 is set so that the score 603 becomes higher as the contract for the short-term restoration is made with the maintenance contract content 602.

The failure monitoring server 104 extracts the customer site name 202 and the machine name 203 in which the failure has occurred from the collected failure information 201, and collates them with the configuration information table 301 in FIG. 3 to obtain the maintenance contract content 303. This is collated with the maintenance contract evaluation table 601 of FIG. Further, by using the maintenance contract evaluation table 601, when the maintenance management center 103 manages a large number of customers, the method of dealing with a failure can be changed for each customer depending on the maintenance contract content 303, which is useful. Is. In addition, since it is possible to individually score a large number of maintenance target machines in the same customer site, it is useful because detailed maintenance contracts can be realized depending on the importance of each computer in the same customer site.

As shown in FIG. 7, the fault monitoring server 104 has a customer rank table 701 capable of converting the importance of a customer with a fault into a score 703. The customer rank table 701 is set such that the score 703 corresponding to the customer site name 702 of the customer increases as the customer becomes an important customer. This is useful because when the fault monitoring server 104 manages a large number of customers, the method of coping with the fault can be changed depending on the customer importance. The fault monitoring server can extract the customer site name 202 from the collected fault information 201 and collate it with the customer rank table 701 to make points. Further, by selling this score 703 to the customer (for example, by increasing the score 703 of the customer who agrees to pay a higher maintenance contract fee), the customer importance can be incorporated into a part of the maintenance contract. It is possible.

The fault monitoring server 104, which has received the fault information 201, adds the respective scores 403, 503, 603, 703 obtained from the above-mentioned tables, and calculates the total fault score (total point) for the fault. . According to the above, the higher the total disability score, the higher the urgency and the early response to the disability is required. This total failure score is collated with the failure response table 801 shown in FIG. 8, and the failure response work content 804 of the failure response 802 of the maintenance work in which the total failure score matches the range of the corresponding points 803.
~ 807 is selected (determined).

If the obtained total failure score corresponds to the failure handling work content 807 in FIG. 8, the maintenance management center 1
03 fault information 201 on the screen of the fault monitoring server 104
After displaying the total failure score, the administrator of the maintenance management center 103 instructs the maintenance staff 106 and the maintenance parts management department 108 as in the conventional procedure.

In the case of the fault handling work content 806 in FIG. 8, the fault information 201 and its total fault score are displayed on the screen of the fault monitoring server 104 of the maintenance management center 103, and further artificial work is performed. Instructions for automatically sending out maintenance parts to the failed site without going through the maintenance parts management department 10
Send to 8. At this time, in order to automatically send out the maintenance parts, the failure monitoring server 104 has been set in advance in FIG. 9 and FIG.
The customer management table 901 and the replacement parts arrangement table 1001 shown in FIG.

FIG. 9 shows a customer management table 901 in which a customer site name 903 and a site location 902 of the site are associated and stored. By referring to this customer management table 901 with the customer site name 202 extracted from the failure information 201, the delivery destination of the maintenance parts is automatically identified.

Further, FIG. 10 shows a replacement part arrangement table 100 for specifying the replacement target part from the failure information 201.
It is 1. The replacement part arrangement table 1001 stores replacement parts 1002 indicating parts and the like corresponding to the failure type 1003. Then, the type of failure 204 extracted from the failure information 201 is made to correspond to the replacement part arrangement table 1001 to replace the replacement target part 100.
2, that is, replacement parts and the like can be specified. Further, the obtained replacement target part 1002 is set to the configuration information table 30 of FIG.
By checking the information item 301c of No. 1, the detailed specification of the part to be replaced is found.

Further, when the total failure score corresponds to the failure handling work content 805 in FIG. 8, the maintenance management center 10
The failure information 201 and the total failure score are displayed on the screen of the failure monitoring server 104 of No. 3, and the maintenance parts are automatically sent to the failure site as described above, and the failure information 201 is summed to the mobile terminal 107 of the maintenance person 106. Transfer the disability score.
At this time, in order to automatically transfer the fault information 201 to the mobile terminal 107 of the maintenance person 106, the fault monitoring server 104 has the maintenance person management table 1101 shown in FIG.

FIG. 11 shows the customer site name 1 in which a failure has occurred.
A maintenance person management table 1101 indicating 104, the name of the maintenance person 1103 in charge thereof, and the contact address 1102 such as the mail address and telephone number. The customer site name 202 extracted from the failure information is stored in the maintenance staff management table 1101.
The failure monitoring server 104 can transfer the information to the maintenance engineer in charge.

In the case of the fault handling work content 804 in FIG. 8, the fault information 201 and its total fault score are displayed on the screen of the fault monitoring server 104 of the maintenance management center 103, and the maintenance staff 106 is the same as the above. Mobile terminal 107
The failure information 201 and the total failure score are transferred to the server and the maintenance parts management section 108 is automatically instructed to send the maintenance parts to the customer site by express delivery.

As described above, it is possible to change the correspondence of the maintenance staff 106 according to the total failure score, and it is possible to give an instruction to send the maintenance parts to the failure site at the optimum shipping cost. Furthermore, the information is the mobile terminal 1 of the maintenance person 106.
07, and the maintenance parts are automatically shipped to the customer site, so that the maintenance staff can directly go to the customer site wherever the failure information 201 is received.

In the case of the above-mentioned fault response work contents 804 and 805 which are relatively urgent, the maintenance personnel 106
Since the fault information 201 and the total fault score are transferred to the portable terminal 107, the maintenance staff 106 can determine the importance of the fault quantitatively by looking at the transmitted total fault score. For example, when the user is instructed to stop at a plurality of sites, it is possible to make an accurate judgment such as giving priority to the disaster recovery of the site having a larger total failure score.

An example of the operation of the maintenance management system of the present embodiment as described above will be summarized in the flowchart of FIG.

As described above, according to the maintenance management system of this embodiment, points are assigned according to the degree of importance of a failure that has occurred in the computer at the customer site.
Priority of fault response is expressed quantitatively. by this,
An administrator of the maintenance management center 103, a maintenance worker who actually performs maintenance management work on the spot, etc. can promptly deal with a failure of the customer site with an appropriate priority order without any hesitation. It is possible to reduce downtime.

Further, it is possible to select the most suitable maintenance component delivery mode according to the urgency of the failure, etc., leading to cost reduction. Further, the customer importance, which is one factor of the obstacle importance, can be arbitrarily set or operated by the points by using the customer rank table 701 or the like. Can take business form.

The invention described in the claims of the present application can be expressed in different ways as follows.

<1> A computer to be maintained and managed by a customer connected to a network, and a fault monitoring computer at a maintenance site capable of obtaining fault information from this computer via the network. A maintenance management system comprising a table for scoring failure information according to the type of failure.

<2> In the fault monitoring computer according to item <1>, a maintenance management system is provided with a table for scoring the obtained fault information according to the hierarchy of the computer in which the fault has occurred. .

<3> In the fault monitoring computer described in item <1>, the obtained fault information is scored according to the maintenance contract content indicating the time for fault recovery of the computer in which the fault has occurred. A maintenance management system comprising a table.

<4> In the fault monitoring computer described in item <1>, a maintenance management is provided, which is provided with a table for scoring the obtained fault information according to the importance of the customer who has the fault. system.

<5> In the fault monitoring computer described in item <1>, the points described in items <1>, <2>, <3>, and <4> are summed up in order to obtain the importance of the fault that has occurred. Maintenance management system characterized by.

<6> The fault monitoring computer described in item <1> is provided with a table for determining instructions for dispatching maintenance personnel and dispatching maintenance parts in accordance with the points totaled in item <5>. A maintenance management system characterized by the following.

<7> A maintenance management system characterized in that the fault monitoring computer described in item <1> can automatically transfer the points totaled in item <5> to a portable terminal of a maintenance person.

<8> In the fault monitoring computer described in item <1>, it is automatically determined whether the maintenance parts are to be delivered by express delivery, normal delivery, or not in accordance with the points totaled in item <5>. A maintenance management system characterized by being able to determine.

<9> A maintenance management system characterized by being able to sell points indicating the importance of the customer described in item <4> in a maintenance contract with the customer.

Although the invention made by the present inventor has been specifically described based on the embodiments, the present invention is not limited to the above-mentioned embodiments, and various modifications can be made without departing from the scope of the invention. Needless to say.

[0049]

[Effects of the Invention] By quantifying and evaluating the failure information sent from the customer site to the failure monitoring server of the maintenance management center, the importance of the failure can be instantly judged and a quick response can be taken. Becomes

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a conceptual diagram showing an example of a configuration of a maintenance management system according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a conceptual diagram showing an example of failure information collected in the maintenance management system according to the embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a conceptual diagram showing an example of a configuration information table of a customer site to be maintained and managed by the maintenance management system according to the embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a conceptual diagram showing an example of a table for grading the type of failure, which is included in the maintenance management system according to the embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a conceptual diagram showing an example of a table for scoring computer hierarchies possessed by the maintenance management system according to the embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 6 is a conceptual diagram showing an example of a table for scoring the recovery time in the maintenance contract, which the maintenance management system according to the embodiment of the present invention has.

FIG. 7 is a conceptual diagram showing an example of a table for scoring customer importance, which the maintenance management system according to the embodiment of the present invention has.

FIG. 8 is a conceptual diagram showing an example of a table that is held by the maintenance management system according to the embodiment of the present invention and is used to determine maintenance support based on points.

FIG. 9 is a conceptual diagram showing an example of a table in which an address of each customer site is described, which is included in the maintenance management system according to the embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 10 is a conceptual diagram showing an example of a table that is included in the maintenance management system according to the embodiment of the present invention and is used to derive a replacement target part from the type of failure.

FIG. 11 is a conceptual diagram showing an example of a table for deriving a maintenance person in charge and its contact information from the customer site name, which the maintenance management system according to the embodiment of the present invention has.

FIG. 12 is a flowchart showing an example of the operation of the maintenance management system according to the exemplary embodiment of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

100 ... Information network 101 ... Customer site 102 for failure monitoring ... Server 103 in customer site ... Maintenance management center 104 capable of monitoring failure of a plurality of customer sites ... Collecting failure information in a plurality of customer sites Fault monitoring server 105 ... Customer site 106 subject to fault monitoring ... Maintenance personnel 107 who receives instructions from maintenance management center ... Mobile terminal 108 of maintenance personnel ... Maintenance parts management department 201 in maintenance management center ... Fault monitoring server Part of the collected fault information items 202 ... Faulty customer site name in fault information 203 ... Faulty machine name in fault information 204 ... Fault type 301 in fault information ... Fault monitoring Configuration information table 302 of each computer under the supervision of the server ... Hierarchical information 303 of each computer ... Computer maintenance contract content 401 ... Table 402 for scoring failure types 402 ... Failure type 403 ... Points for each failure type 501 ... Table 502 for scoring computer hierarchy ... Computer hierarchy 503 ... Points 601 in computer hierarchy ... Table 602 for scoring recovery time in maintenance contract ... Recovery time 603 in maintenance contract ... Score 701 in each recovery time ... Table 702 for scoring customer importance ... Customer site name 703 managed by the maintenance management center ... Score 801 assigned to each customer ... Table 802 for determining maintenance support based on the score ... Contents of maintenance support 803 ... Total failure score of 403, 503, 603, 703 Corresponding score 901 ... Table 9 in which the address of each customer site is described 2 ... Customer site location 903 ... Customer site name 1001 ... Table 1002 for deriving a replacement target part from the failure type 1002 ... Replacement target part 1003 corresponding to the failure type ... Failure type 1101 in the failure information ... Customer Table 1102 for deriving the maintenance staff and contact information from the site name ... Maintenance staff contact information 1103 ... Maintenance staff name for each customer site 1104 ... Customer site name managed by maintenance center

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Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. A failure quantifying means for quantifying the failure status of an information processing system to be maintained and managed, and a maintenance management control means for evaluating the urgency or importance of the failure status according to the magnitude of the numerical value. A maintenance management system characterized by including. 2. The maintenance management system according to claim 1, wherein the failure status is a type of failure of the information processing system subject to maintenance management, a hierarchy in which the failure has occurred in the information processing system, maintenance contract content, Based on the total numerical value of the results of digitizing each of the above information, the content of the maintenance work is decided by quantitatively judging the urgency or importance of the failure situation. Maintenance management system characterized by 3. The maintenance management system according to claim 2, wherein the content of the maintenance management work includes at least one of maintenance parts and arrangement of maintenance personnel.