JP2005352693A - Image processing system and distributed processing method in image processing system - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To efficiently use the whole system, and to reduce interrupted jobs. <P>SOLUTION: In this image processing system wherein a plurality of image processors and a computer device are connected to each other via a network, requirement of a user is divided into the jobs by grid computing and is distributed to the plurality of image processors, a history of a state change of an idling rate, an idling time, an achievement ratio of the job, or the like of each of the image processor is stored as history information (500, 510), and the history information is used when distributing the jobs. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2006,JPO&NCIPI

Description

  The present invention relates to an image processing system and a distributed processing method in the image processing system, and more specifically, a plurality of image processing apparatuses and at least one information processing apparatus are mutually connected using a framework of grid computing technology. The present invention relates to a technique for effectively using an image processing apparatus of a connected image processing system.

  In recent years, image processing apparatuses (image forming apparatuses) such as MFPs (Multi Function Peripherals), which have a facsimile function and a scanner function in addition to a printing function and a copying function, have been widely used and introduced in offices and the like. . Such an image processing apparatus is generally installed so as to be connected to a network such as a LAN and used from a plurality of PCs (personal computers) via a server or the like.

  Recently, distributed printing that effectively uses the processing power of the entire system by cooperating a plurality of image processing apparatuses interconnected via a network in such an environment has been proposed. With reference to this, a technique has also been proposed in which the next job is searched for a distribution target based on the processing results of a job having similar characteristics and attributes to the job processed in advance (see Patent Document 1).

  On the other hand, grid computing (hereinafter simply referred to as “grid”) is attracting attention as a technique for providing a virtual processing device by utilizing a plurality of resources in a network. Application to is being attempted.

  FIG. 9 is a diagram for explaining the architecture of grid computing. Although there are several types of grids, what is described here is a type called a desktop grid, which executes a job by using the free time of a CPU such as a desktop PC.

  In FIG. 9, a client 110 is a device to which a user submits a job as a request. The submitted job is transferred to a task manager (hereinafter abbreviated as TM) 120, and TM 20 is a dynamic job scheduler ( Dynamic Job Scheduler (hereinafter abbreviated as “DJS”) 30.

  The DJS 130 includes a broker 141 and a resource manager (hereinafter abbreviated as “RM”) 142, and each resource management of the plurality of host devices 140 to 160 is recognized as a resource. Are analyzed to select the optimal resource broker 411 and notify the TM 20. Here, the resource means an available CPU free state.

  The broker 141 registers the resource information acquired by the RM 142 in the DJS 130, submits the job to the optimal resource in response to a request from the TM 120, and notifies the TM 120 of the completion of the job when the job is completed.

  The TM 120 submits a job to the optimal broker 141 selected by the DJS 130, monitors the progress of the job thereafter, and when the completion notification is received from the broker 141, notifies the client 110 of the result. Further, when a change or abnormality occurs in a resource (for example, a failure or another job is received), the RM 142 notifies the broker 141.

With this mechanism, desktop grid computing is realized by allocating jobs to resources such as CPUs that are not normally used and enabling distributed processing on multiple devices without the user's awareness. ing.
JP 2003-60832 A

  However, many of the conventionally proposed distributed printing processes select an optimal resource (device) based on a vacant state and processing capacity in units of jobs, and output the job at the highest speed. However, since the operating rate of the entire system is not taken into consideration, there are many cases where the operating rate is not so much improved.

  In addition, when a request is separately input from the user to a resource that was free at the time of job submission, the job is interrupted, resulting in inconvenience that it takes time.

  The present invention has been made in view of the above situation, and an object thereof is to efficiently use the entire system and to reduce the number of jobs to be interrupted.

An image processing system according to one aspect of the present invention that achieves the above object is an image processing system in which a plurality of image processing devices and at least one information processing device are connected to each other via a network.
Each image processing device communicates with the resource management unit for managing the resource state of the image processing device, receives information about the resource state, receives a job, and displays the progress of the job. A mediating means for monitoring,
Image processing for managing resource states of the plurality of image processing devices by communicating with mediation means of each image processing device, dividing an input job and distributing the divided jobs among the plurality of image processing devices Job distribution means for determining a device;
A task management unit that divides a request input by a user into the information processing apparatus into jobs, and distributes the requests to the image processing apparatus determined by the job distribution unit;
History storage means for storing history information representing a change in the state of the resource of each image processing apparatus managed by the job distribution means.

  That is, according to the present invention, in an image processing system in which a plurality of image processing devices and at least one information processing device are connected to each other via a network, each image processing device indicates the resource status of the image processing device. A media management unit for each image processing apparatus, including: a resource management unit for managing; and a mediation unit for communicating with the resource management unit to receive information on the state of the resource and receiving a job and monitoring its progress To manage resource states of a plurality of image processing apparatuses, divide an input job, determine an image processing apparatus that distributes the divided jobs among the plurality of image processing apparatuses, and On the other hand, the request input by the user is divided into jobs, distributed to the determined image processing apparatuses, and history information indicating the state change of the resource of each image processing apparatus To pay.

  In this case, since the state change of the resource of each image processing apparatus is stored as history information, for example, the image processing apparatus that distributes the job is determined based on information such as the execution history of the distributed job. Therefore, the entire system can be used more efficiently and fewer jobs are interrupted than when jobs are distributed based only on the resource availability and processing capability of each image processing apparatus.

  Note that the job distribution unit preferably determines an image processing apparatus to distribute the job based on the history information stored in the history storage unit.

  The history storage means preferably stores, as the history information, a time history at a predetermined time and a period history over a plurality of days longer than the predetermined time as the history information.

  The history information may include information indicating a rate at which the resource is in an idle state, an idle state time in a predetermined time, and a rate at which a submitted job is terminated without being interrupted.

  It is preferable to further include output means for outputting the history information stored in the history storage means by display or printing.

  The image processing apparatus may be an MFP (Multi Function Peripheral) or a printer.

  The above object can also be achieved by a distributed processing method in the image processing system, a computer program for executing the method by an information processing apparatus, and a storage medium for storing the program.

  According to the present invention, since the state change of the resource of each image processing apparatus is stored as history information, for example, the image processing apparatus that distributes the job is determined based on information such as the execution history of the distributed job. The entire system can be used more efficiently and fewer jobs are interrupted than when jobs are distributed based solely on the availability of resources and processing capabilities of each image processing apparatus. .

  Hereinafter, exemplary embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings. However, the components described in the following embodiments are merely examples, and are not intended to limit the scope of the present invention only to them.

<Embodiment>
(Schematic configuration of the system)
FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a configuration of an embodiment of an image processing system according to the present invention.

  In the figure, reference numerals 1, 2, and 3 denote laser beam printers (hereinafter simply referred to as “printers”), and reference numerals 10, 11, and 12 denote information processing apparatuses having a CPU such as a personal computer (hereinafter simply referred to as “PC”). 20 is a network for connecting the devices, and communication is performed between the devices via the network according to a predetermined protocol.

  The PCs 10, 11, and 12 output a print job including print data and control codes, and one of the printers 1 to 3 is selected as described later, and printing is performed according to the print job.

(PC configuration)
FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating a configuration of the PC 10 according to the present embodiment. Note that the PC 11 and the PC 12 in this embodiment have the same configuration.

  The PC 10 is configured as one computer system to which a keyboard 306 and a mouse 307 as input means and a display monitor 305 as display means are connected. The PC 10 is assumed to be operating with basic software (OS) such as Windows (registered trademark).

  The PC 10 can be broadly classified into the spooler 303 including the application software 301, the graphic subsystem 302, the spool file 3031 and the communication interface 3032 with the printing apparatus when focusing on only the part related to the present invention. .

  The application software 301 is application software that operates on an OS such as a word processor or a spreadsheet. The graphics subsystem 302 includes a graphics device interface (hereinafter referred to as GDI) 3021 that is a part of the OS function, a printer driver 3022 that is a device driver dynamically linked from the GDI 3021, a band spooler 3023, and integration. It is constituted by data 3024.

  The printer driver 3022 is called from the GDI 3021 via an interface called DDI (Device Driver Interface), and performs processing corresponding to the printing device to be output for each drawing object. In the PC 10 according to the present embodiment, the information passed to the DDI function is converted into a print command data (page description language: PDL) format that can be processed at high speed by the printer and directly sent to the spooler 303, and the generated print There are two types of processing when command data is divided into band units, one page is sequentially stored in the band spooler 3023 from the first band, and the instruction data is collectively sent to the spooler 303 at the end of the page.

  The spooler 303 is a spool file system managed by the OS, stores print data as a spool file 3031 in units of one page or in units of jobs according to settings, and further implements a network protocol via the I / F 3032 The data is sent to the printers 1 to 3 through the interface 304.

  Depending on the OS, the names and functional frameworks of the above-described parts may be slightly different. However, differences in these names and frameworks do not affect the essence of the present invention. For example, a module called a spooler or a spool file in the present invention can be realized using a module called a print queue in another OS.

  In general, the PC 10 including these functional modules includes a central processing unit (CPU), a read only memory (ROM), a random access memory (RAM), a hard disk drive (HDD), and various input / output control units (I). The software called basic software (OS) manages the control under hardware such as / O), and under the basic software, the respective application software and sub-system processes operate as function modules.

(Printer driver processing)
FIG. 3 is a diagram schematically illustrating an outline of processing of the printer driver 3022. Here, as a representative example, processing when the printer 10 is selected and printed on the PC 10 will be described. However, if printing is performed from any of the PCs 10, 11, 12 to any of the printers 1, 2, 3, the same as this description. It is.

  Reference numeral 4001 denotes document data created using a general document creation application, and includes graphics, characters, and images.

  When printing such a document, first, drawing commands (4002, 4003) are passed to the printer driver 3022 installed in the OS via the OS. In the initial state, the printer driver 3022 generates a print command (PDL) for each drawing command and writes the print command to the system spooler 303 in the same manner as a normal PDL mode driver. At this time, the printer driver 3022 integrates the data size calculated by a predetermined calculation formula corresponding to the number of commands and the type of command as integration data 3024. The accumulated data 3024 is stored in a predetermined area of a RAM included in the computer, for example. Note that the drawing command (DDI function) received by the printer driver 3022 via the OS has a specification that is output in order from the lower layer when drawing objects are superimposed.

  When all the data for one page has been written into the system spooler 303, a print command (PDL) stored in the spooler 303 as a spool file 3031 is sent to the printing apparatus 100, and the accumulated data 3024 is cleared. On the other hand, when the value of the accumulated data 3024 exceeds a predetermined data size, the number of commands, etc., the processing is switched as follows.

  Reference numeral 4010 in FIG. 3 shows a state in which up to “rectangular drawing (image background) 4021, image drawing command 4022 and image entity 4023” indicated by 4002 are stored in the system spooler 303. In the present embodiment, it is assumed that when the image data 4023 is output to the spooler 303, the processing is switched when the accumulated data 3024 exceeds a predetermined data size threshold.

  The printer driver 3022 generates a print command for the drawing command 4003 after the image data 4023, and divides the band spooler 3023 reserved as a predetermined area of the RAM, for example, at the time of initialization processing for each band area to be processed by the printer 1. Are stored and managed in the drawing order (4006). Since the drawing command 403 (DDI function) passed from the OS is output regardless of the printing direction of the printing apparatus, even when the band processing is switched from the middle of the page as in the present embodiment, the first band. Storage processing is performed for all the bands in the page from the Nth band to the Nth band.

  The storing process is performed every time a DDI function in the printer driver is called. When it becomes impossible to store in the storage area in the band area, a new RAM area is secured. When the remaining drawing data for one page from the first band to the Nth band has been stored, the data is written to the system spooler 303 in the order of bands to be processed by the printing apparatus (4009).

  By attaching band information 4011 to be transmitted later to the head of each band data, the printer 1 can recognize that the print data has shifted from page units to band units. When the print data for one page is spooled in the system spooler 303, it is sent to the printer 1 (4012).

(Printer configuration)
FIG. 4 is a diagram illustrating the configuration of the printer 1 according to the present embodiment. In the present embodiment, the printer 2 and the printer 3 have the same configuration.

  Reference numeral 311 denotes an engine unit that forms a latent image on a photosensitive drum by a known electrophotographic process based on image data (binary or multi-valued data), transfers the image onto a sheet, and fixes and prints the image. , Connected to the engine unit 311, receives code data (ESC code, various PDLs, etc.) sent from the PCs 10, 11, and 12, generates page information composed of dot data based on the code data, and sends it to the engine unit 311 A controller unit 312 transmits image data by a predetermined interface unit, and 312 is a panel unit 312 that interfaces with a user (operator), and includes a liquid crystal panel having a touch sensor (not shown) and a keyboard. . The user can instruct the printer 1 to perform a predetermined operation by operating the panel unit 312.

  The controller unit 310 will be described. The controller unit 310 includes an interface (also referred to as I / F) unit 3101 that is a means for connecting to the network 20, a reception buffer 3103 for temporarily storing and managing received data and the like, and temporarily storing and managing transmission data and the like. A transmission buffer 3104, a command analysis unit 3107 for managing print data, a print control process execution unit 3109, a drawing process execution unit 3105, and a page memory 3106.

  The interface unit 3101 is a communication unit that transmits and receives print data to and from the PCs 10 to 12 via the network 20.

  The print data received through the interface unit 3101 is sequentially accumulated in a reception buffer 3103 that is a storage unit that temporarily stores the data, and is read out and processed by the command analysis unit 3107 or the drawing processing execution unit 3105 as necessary. The The command analysis unit 3107 is configured by a control program according to a print command system and a print job control language. The analysis result of print data related to drawing such as character printing, graphics, and images is instructed to the drawing processing execution unit 3105. Commands other than drawing, such as paper feed selection and reset commands, give instructions to the print control processing execution unit 3109 for processing.

  A rendering process execution unit 3105 sequentially develops each rendering object of characters and images in a band memory in the page memory 3106, and renders the four colors Y (yellow), M (magenta), C (cyan), and K (black). It is.

  For example, for the color LBP engine, it is necessary to send device-dependent bitmap data in the order of MCYK. However, in the standard state, not all the memory necessary for this is secured, and one plane (1, 2 Alternatively, a memory area of a fraction of 4 bits / pixel) is secured in the page memory 3106 as a band memory area. The band memory area is repeatedly used, and the drawing process is performed in synchronization with the process of the printer engine 3110.

  Normally, the page memory 3106 is managed by banding control in which the video signal shipping process to the printer engine 3110 follows the development process by the drawing process execution unit 3105 as described above. A memory area that can be expanded may be secured.

  The controller unit 310 is configured by a computer system using a central processing unit (CPU), a read only memory (ROM), a random access memory (RAM), and the like. Further, the processing of each unit in the controller unit 310 may be configured to be processed by time sharing under a multitask monitor (real-time OS), and a dedicated controller / hardware is prepared for each function. It may be configured to be processed independently.

  The output control unit 3108 converts the contents of the band memory (page memory) 3106 into a video signal and transfers it to the printer engine 3110.

(Configuration related to grid computing)
FIG. 5 is a diagram for explaining a configuration that utilizes the framework of grid computing in the present embodiment. This figure shows a configuration when the grid framework is applied to the PDL processing of the image processing apparatus.

  In the present embodiment, the TM 400 and the DJS 401 are provided in the PC 12 and manage the resources of the entire image processing system of the present embodiment. A set of the brokers 410, 411, and 412 and the RMs 420, 421, and 422 are provided in the printers 1, 2, and 3, respectively.

  The operation of each part in this figure will be described in relation to a flowchart described later.

(History information)
FIG. 6 is a diagram illustrating an example of history information displayed in the present embodiment.

  In this embodiment, the DJS 401 accumulates and manages resource (printer) state changes notified by the RMs 420, 421, and 422 as history, and uses it as reference information for scheduling in grid computing. In addition, print output from the display monitor 305 or the printers 1, 2 and 3 is possible so that the user can refer to the history information.

  In FIG. 6, 500 represents a time record that is history information in a predetermined time (one hour) until the displayed time, and 510 is a period that is history information over a predetermined history storage period such as one month, for example. Represents achievements.

  Reference numerals 501 and 511 denote “device names”, and names indicating the printers 1 to 3 constituting the system are displayed in this column. Reference numerals 502 and 512 denote “idle rates”, which indicate the ratios at which the apparatus is not operating. Reference numerals 503 and 513 denote “average idle time”, which indicates an average time during which the apparatus is not operating in one hour. Reference numerals 504 and 514 denote “achievement rates”, which indicate ratios obtained by dividing the number of times the apparatus has completed without stopping the job received from the TM by the number of times the job has been received.

  A “system utilization rate” of 520 indicates an average of “achievement rates” of all apparatuses (printers 1 to 3) as a used ratio of resources of the entire system of the present embodiment.

(Management of history information)
FIG. 7 is a diagram for explaining a mode of managing history information in the present embodiment.

  The history information as shown in FIG. 6 is stored in the resource management table 602 linked to the resource list 601. Both the resource list 601 and the resource management table 602 are managed by the DJS 402, and the substance (data) is stored in a predetermined nonvolatile memory (including an HDD) of the PC 12.

  The resource management table 602 includes three parts: management information, status information, and history. The correspondence with the example shown in FIG. 6 will be described. The device names are the device names 501 and 511, the time performance is 500, the period The achievement corresponds to 510, and the system utilization rate corresponds to 520.

  As will be described later, the time record is updated every predetermined interval or whenever some state change occurs for each device.

(History information update process)
FIG. 8 is a flowchart for explaining processing relating to update of history information in the present embodiment.

  For example, when a print job (print processing request) is input from the PC 10 to the printer 1 (step S101), the job is divided into sub jobs for one or more of the brokers 410 to 412 by TM400 and DJS401. The division unit is selected by the TM 400 as a band unit as described above, or a page unit or a job unit. Further, the DJS 401 performs division into sub-jobs in accordance with the instruction from the TM 400 based on the above time record 500 (step S102).

  Each sub-job is transmitted to the designated brokers 410 to 412 and processed by each of the printers 1 to 3 via the RMs 420 to 422. For example, when a sub job is transmitted to the broker 411, the RM 421 notifies the broker 411 of resource information (the availability of the printer 2), and submits the sub job to the resource (printer 2) in accordance with an instruction from the broker 411 (Step S1). S103).

  Further, the RMs 420 to 422 periodically pick up the state of each resource (printer) and notify the corresponding broker if there is an abnormality. An abnormal state includes a job submitted through a normal route other than a job by grid computing in addition to the occurrence of a failure or the like, for example, a job submitted by designating a printer from a PC. This includes cases in which it becomes impossible to do so.

  When an abnormal state is notified from each RM to the DJS 401 (step S104), the DJS 401 saves the contents and occurrence time as a history and updates the history (step S110), and the sub job based on the updated time record. The processing target resource (printer) is set again (step S102).

  If there is no notification of an abnormal state in step S104 and completion notifications are received from all the RMs to which the sub job is assigned (step S105), DJS 402 and TM 400 combine the processed sub jobs in the specified resource (printer 1). Then, an instruction to generate a processed job is issued (step S106), and printing is executed in the printer 1 (step S107).

  As described above, according to the present embodiment, in an image processing system that includes a plurality of image processing devices and a plurality of computer devices and distributes processing using grid computing technology, the processing results for each image processing device are recorded as a history. It is possible to preferentially assign a job to a client having a high job achievement rate based on the latest time history.

  Furthermore, since the period results indicating the results of grid computing over a predetermined period can be displayed or printed, the results of processing by grid computing can be quantitatively shown to the user, and the effects of system introduction and investment It can be used as information for clarifying effects.

<Modification of Embodiment>
In the above embodiment, a system including a plurality of PCs and printers has been described as an example. However, an MFP may be included as an image processing apparatus, and the same applies to a network environment in which a plurality of MFPs and printers are connected. Is done.

  In the embodiment, a system including three PCs and three printers has been described as an example. However, the number of PCs and image processing apparatuses included in the system is not particularly limited.

  Further, in the system according to the embodiment, the TM 400 and the DJS 401 are described as being provided in the PC 12. However, the device in which the TM 400 and the DJS 401 are provided may be any device in the system, and any of the PCs 10 to 12 and the printers 1 to 3. May be provided.

  In addition, in the system of the embodiment, it has been described that both the resource list 601 and the resource management table 602 are managed by the DJS 402 and the entity is stored in a predetermined nonvolatile memory (including the HDD) of the PC 12. The storage location may be any accessible non-volatile memory in the system, and is not particularly limited.

  Furthermore, in addition to the above history information item, a value obtained by multiplying the “system utilization rate” by a consideration coefficient may be included as a value that simply represents a quantitative investment effect as a system utilization effect. The history information including this value may be automatically displayed or printed by displaying on the display monitor 305 or printing from the printers 1 to 3.

<Other embodiments>
The present invention may be applied to a grid computing system (grid network) constituted by a plurality of devices, or may be applied to one device constituting the grid network.

  In the above embodiment, an example in which a print job is assigned to an image processing apparatus by grid computing has been described. However, a job other than a print job, for example, an image processing job may be assigned to an image processing apparatus. The effect is obtained.

  In the present invention, a software program (in this embodiment, a program corresponding to the flowchart shown in FIG. 8) that realizes the functions of the above-described embodiment is directly or remotely supplied to the system or apparatus. The computer can read out and execute the supplied program code. In that case, as long as it has the function of a program, the form does not need to be a program.

  Accordingly, since the functions of the present invention are implemented by computer, the program code installed in the computer also implements the present invention. That is, the claims of the present invention include the computer program itself for realizing the functional processing of the present invention.

  In this case, the program may be in any form as long as it has a program function, such as an object code, a program executed by an interpreter, or script data supplied to the OS.

  As a recording medium for supplying the program, for example, flexible disk, hard disk, optical disk, magneto-optical disk, MO, CD-ROM, CD-R, CD-RW, magnetic tape, nonvolatile memory card, ROM, DVD (DVD-ROM, DVD-R).

  As another program supply method, a client computer browser is used to connect to an Internet homepage, and the computer program of the present invention itself or a compressed file including an automatic installation function is downloaded from the homepage to a recording medium such as a hard disk. Can also be supplied. It can also be realized by dividing the program code constituting the program of the present invention into a plurality of files and downloading each file from a different homepage. That is, a WWW server that allows a plurality of users to download a program file for realizing the functional processing of the present invention on a computer is also included in the scope of the present invention.

  In addition, the program of the present invention is encrypted, stored in a storage medium such as a CD-ROM, distributed to users, and key information for decryption is downloaded from a homepage via the Internet to users who have cleared predetermined conditions. It is also possible to execute the encrypted program by using the key information and install the program on a computer.

  In addition to the functions of the above-described embodiments being realized by the computer executing the read program, the OS running on the computer based on the instruction of the program is a part of the actual processing. Alternatively, the functions of the above-described embodiment can be realized by performing all of them and performing the processing.

  Furthermore, after the program read from the recording medium is written to a memory provided in a function expansion board inserted into the computer or a function expansion unit connected to the computer, the function expansion board or The CPU or the like provided in the function expansion unit performs part or all of the actual processing, and the functions of the above-described embodiments are also realized by the processing.

1 is a block diagram showing an overall configuration of an image processing system according to the present invention. It is a block diagram explaining the structure of PC10 of FIG. FIG. 6 is a diagram schematically illustrating an outline of processing of a printer driver. FIG. 2 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration of the printer 1 in FIG. 1. It is a figure for demonstrating the structure which utilizes the framework of a grid computing in embodiment of this invention. It is a figure which shows the example of the log | history information displayed in embodiment of this invention. It is a figure for demonstrating the form which manages log | history information in embodiment of this invention. It is a flowchart for demonstrating the process regarding the update of the log | history information in embodiment of this invention. It is a figure explaining the architecture of grid computing.

Explanation of symbols

1-3 Printer 10-12 PC
20 Network 500 Time record 501, 511 Device name 502, 512 Idle rate 503, 513 Average idle time 504, 514 Achievement rate 510 Period record 515 Grid utilization rate 520 System utilization rate

Claims (8)

An image processing system in which a plurality of image processing devices and at least one information processing device are connected to each other via a network,
Each image processing apparatus communicates with the resource management means for managing the resource status of the image processing apparatus and receives information on the status of the resource, receives a job, and displays the progress of the job. A mediating means for monitoring,
Image processing for managing resource states of the plurality of image processing devices by communicating with mediation means of each image processing device, dividing an input job and distributing the divided jobs among the plurality of image processing devices Job distribution means for determining a device;
A task management unit that divides a request input by a user into the information processing apparatus into jobs, and distributes the requests to the image processing apparatus determined by the job distribution unit;
An image processing system comprising: history storage means for storing history information representing a change in a state of a resource of each image processing apparatus managed by the job distribution means.   The image processing system according to claim 1, wherein the job distribution unit determines an image processing apparatus that distributes the job based on history information stored in the history storage unit.   The history storage means stores, as history information, time history at a predetermined time and period history over a plurality of days longer than the predetermined time as history information. The image processing system described.   4. The history information includes information indicating a rate at which a resource is in an idle state, an idle time for a predetermined time, and a rate at which a submitted job is terminated without being interrupted, respectively. The image processing system according to any one of the above.   5. The image processing system according to claim 1, further comprising output means for outputting history information stored in the history storage means.   6. The image processing system according to claim 1, wherein the image processing apparatus is an MFP (Multi Function Peripheral).   The image processing system according to claim 1, wherein the image processing apparatus is a printer. A plurality of image processing apparatuses and at least one information processing apparatus are connected to each other via a network, and each image processing apparatus manages a resource state of the image processing apparatus, and the resource management means An intermediary unit that communicates with and receives information on the state of the resource and receives a job and monitors its progress, and a distributed processing method in an image processing system,
Image processing for managing resource states of the plurality of image processing devices by communicating with mediation means of each image processing device, dividing an input job and distributing the divided jobs among the plurality of image processing devices A job distribution process for determining a device;
A task management step of dividing a request input by a user into the information processing device into jobs and distributing the requests to the image processing device determined in the job distribution step;
A distributed storage method in an image processing system, comprising: a history storage step for storing history information representing a change in a state of a resource of each image processing apparatus managed in the job distribution step.

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