JP2006235827A - Print system, print control server, obstacle information acquiring method and program - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To investigate a cause by specifying a print job causing any failure. <P>SOLUTION: When any failure occurs, failure contents are updated in the MIB of printers 40-1 and 40-n, and a trap signal in an SNMP and the information of the MIB are transmitted to an SNMP manager 208 of a print control server 20. When a trap signal is accepted, it is notified to a failure analyzing part 209, and the notified information of the MIB is analyzed by a failure analyzing part 209. As the result of analysis, when the failure contents are an unrecoverable failure(maintenance staff call or the like), the status(in-spooler position information) of a print job is acquired by using an IPP, and the acquired information is text-converted by a text converting part 210, and notified to a manager terminal 30. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2006,JPO&NCIPI

Description

  The present invention relates to a printing system, a print control server, and a failure information acquisition method and program for investigating the cause when a failure occurs, and in particular, a printing system and print control for investigating the cause of a failure that occurred based on information relating to a print job. The present invention relates to a server, a failure information acquisition method, and a program.

  Generally, when a failure or trouble occurs in a printing apparatus that supports SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol), a “trap signal” is transmitted to a print server or client PC called a manager. At this time, the content of the failure in the printing apparatus is determined by referring from the manager to MIB (Management Information Base) information, which is a collection of management information held in advance in the printing apparatus.

  In the MIB, various information can be managed, and each managed information is assigned an identifier “OID”, and desired information can be acquired by specifying an OID (Object Identifier). Can do. Information managed as an MIB at this time can store various information as MIBs for each product and for each company, in addition to the standard MIB defined in RFC (Request For Comments) 1213. .

  Of the information managed as the MIB, information that needs to be detected as a failure is defined in advance, and a failure of the printing apparatus can be detected based on the information.

  However, depending on the function provided by the printing apparatus in the information for performing the defined failure detection, information that does not need to be detected as a failure is included, so the printing apparatus provides by detecting a specific failure. The entire function will be unusable.

  In the prior art disclosed in Patent Document 1, there is a state or error that can be avoided by determining whether the information needs to be detected as failure information in order to realize the function from information previously defined as information for detecting the failure. When it is not fatal, it shows that the function is realized by judging that it is not in the down state.

In the prior art disclosed in Patent Document 2, inquiries from the monitoring apparatus in the network image processing apparatus avoid conflicts, and the processing of the network image processing apparatus is reduced. This avoids frequent occurrence of a situation where the monitoring device does not respond, so that the network image processing device can be remotely monitored efficiently and reliably from the monitoring device.
JP2002-215379 JP 2003-015970 A

  However, in the prior art disclosed in Patent Document 1, the state of the printing apparatus in which the failure has occurred is acquired and it is determined whether or not the error is fatal. There is a problem that it is not possible to specify a print job in the middle and acquire the job status of the print job.

  The prior art disclosed in Patent Document 2 is a method for efficiently collecting information and is not a technique for directly investigating the cause of a failure that has occurred.

  Further, in general, the print output increases the printing efficiency and speeds up by storing the print job sent to the temporary storage area of the printing apparatus. For this reason, there is a problem in that it is not possible to specify a print job that is being printed when a failure occurs.

  SUMMARY An advantage of some aspects of the invention is that it provides a printing system, a print control server, a failure information acquisition method, and a program that can determine the cause of a failure by specifying the print job that caused the failure.

  In order to achieve the above object, according to the present invention, a plurality of printing request devices and a plurality of printing devices are connected via a network, and the printing request device specifies the printing device and specifies the specified printing device. In a printing system that issues a print request by transferring a print job to the printer via a print control server, the print control server monitors the status of the plurality of printing devices using a simple network management protocol And when a failure occurs in any one of the plurality of printing devices, an analysis unit that analyzes a failure content of the printing device by monitoring by the network monitoring unit, and based on an analysis result by the analysis unit Judgment means for judging whether or not the printing apparatus cannot recover from the failure, and determining by the judging means that the printing apparatus cannot be recovered from the trouble If it, characterized by comprising a print job specifying means for specifying a print job relating to the failure by using the Internet Printing Protocol.

  According to a second aspect of the present invention, in the first aspect of the invention, the print job specifying means includes a print job stored in the printing apparatus determined to be unable to recover from the failure and a spooler in the print control server. The print job related to the occurrence of the failure is specified by determining the print job being transferred to the printing apparatus.

  The invention of claim 3 is connected to a network to which a plurality of print request devices and a plurality of print devices are connected, receives a print job specifying the print device from the print request device, and receives the print job from the print request device. In a print control server that performs print control by transferring to a printing apparatus, a network monitoring unit that monitors a state of the plurality of printing apparatuses using a simple network management protocol, and any one of the plurality of printing apparatuses When a failure occurs in the apparatus, an analysis unit that analyzes the failure content of the printing apparatus by monitoring by the network monitoring unit, and a determination unit that determines whether the printing apparatus cannot recover from the failure based on an analysis result by the analysis unit If the determination unit determines that the printing apparatus cannot recover from the failure, the Internet printing protocol is changed. There characterized by comprising a print job specifying means for specifying a print job relating to the failure to.

  According to a fourth aspect of the present invention, a plurality of print requesting devices and a plurality of printing devices are connected via a network, and the print requesting device specifies the printing device and performs print control on the specified printing device. A failure information acquisition method in a printing system that makes a print request by transferring a print job via a server, wherein the print control server uses a simple network management protocol to monitor the status of the plurality of printing devices. And when it is detected by the monitoring by the network monitoring means that a failure has occurred in any one of the plurality of printing devices, the failure means of the printing device in which the failure has occurred is analyzed by the analyzing means. Analyzing, based on the analysis result by the analyzing means, determining whether the printing apparatus is unable to recover from the failure by the determining means; If the printing apparatus is determined to disaster recovery impossible, and identifies the print job specifying means the print job according to the failure by using the Internet Printing Protocol.

  According to a fifth aspect of the present invention, a plurality of print requesting devices and a plurality of printing devices are connected via a network, and the print requesting device specifies the printing device and performs print control for the specified printing device. A fault information acquisition program for executing fault information acquisition in a printing system that issues a print request by transferring a print job via a server, wherein the statuses of the plurality of printing apparatuses are determined using a simple network management protocol. A first step monitored by the print control server; and when the first step detects that a failure has occurred in any one of the plurality of printing devices, the printing device in which the failure has occurred A second step of analyzing the content of the failure, and whether the printing apparatus in which the failure has occurred is unable to recover from the failure based on the analysis result of the second step A third step of determining, and if it is determined by the determination of the third step that the printing apparatus is unable to recover from a failure, a fourth job for specifying a print job related to the occurrence of the failure using an Internet printing protocol And a step.

  According to the present invention, the print job status (position information in the spooler) using the IPP is acquired based on the failure occurrence notification from the SNMP compatible printer. However, the present invention is not limited to this, and it is possible to obtain information for general purposes, and it is possible to quickly find out the contents of a failure that has occurred in the printer.

  Hereinafter, an embodiment of a printing system, a print control server, a failure information acquisition method, and a program according to the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.

  FIG. 1 is a system configuration diagram configured by applying a printing system, a print control server, a failure information acquisition method and a program according to the present invention.

  In FIG. 1, this system includes client PCs 10-1 and 10-n (hereinafter referred to as “client PC 10”) that make print output requests, a print control server 20 that controls print output, a network communication state, and a print state. An administrator terminal 30 that is a manager's terminal to be managed, printers 40-1 and 40-n (hereinafter referred to as “printer 40”) that perform print output, and are connected via a network line 50, A fault occurring in at least one printer 40 is detected, and the cause of the fault is investigated. The client PC 10 and the printer 40 are composed of a plurality of units.

  The client PC 10 selects the printer 40 that prints out the print job, and sends the print job to the print control server 20. Print control is performed by the print control server 20, and print output is performed by the selected printer 40. The administrator terminal 30 monitors the flow and print status of the print job at this time.

  With such a configuration, the administrator terminal 30 can confirm a failure that has occurred in the printer 40.

  FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing in detail the print control server of the system configuration diagram shown in FIG.

  FIG. 2 shows a detailed configuration of the print control server in the system configuration of FIG. The print control server 20 includes a spooler 201, a GDI 202, a printer driver 203, a spool file 204, an IPP monitor 205, an IPP job management table 206, a network port 207, an SNMP manager 208, a failure analysis unit 209, and a text conversion unit 210. Composed.

  The spooler 201 is a module that manages, saves, and sequentially executes a plurality of generated processing requests according to a certain rule, and includes a GDI 202, a printer driver 203, and a spool file 204. When a print request is received from the client PC 10, the print job is received by the spooler 201.

  GDI (Graphic Device Interface) 202 is provided for the number of printers 40 supported by the print control server 20, receives a print request from the client PC 10 and draws it on a graphic, and each device (printer 40). Absorb the difference in specifications.

  The printer driver 203 converts the print job received by the GDI 202 into a PDL (Page-Description Language) suitable for the specifications of the printer 40.

  The spool file 204 indicates a storage area for temporarily storing a PDL print job converted by the printer driver 203. The stored print job is managed by FIFO (First-In First-Out) and sent to the IPP monitor 205.

  In addition, when the print output is received from the IPP monitor 205, the completed print job is deleted.

  The GDI 202, the printer driver 203, and the spool file 204 exist as many as the number of printers 40 to be supported, and are processed for each printer 40.

  When an IPP (Internet Printing Protocol) monitor 205 prints out a print job temporarily stored in the spool file 204 of the spooler 201, it assigns a job identifier that uniquely identifies the print job. The print job information and the job identifier are associated and stored in the IPP job management table 206.

  When the printing process is executed by the printer 40 and the printed printing paper is discharged to the tray, the job identifier of the print job for which printing output has been completed is notified. The received job identifier is collated with the job identifier managed in the IPP job management table 206, and the spooler 201 is notified that the print output of the print job to which the matched job identifier is assigned is completed.

  The IPP job management table 206 stores and manages information on a print job for which a print request has been made and a job identifier for the print job assigned by the IPP monitor 205 in association with each other. The print job can be specified by the job identifier.

  A network port 207 indicates a port for performing network communication with the printer 40 connected to the print control 20, and transmits a print job to the printer 40 using this port as an interface. The printer 40 is equipped with a spool for temporarily storing print jobs. While the print job is stored in the spool, management is performed using the same job identifier as the IPP job management table 206.

  Thus, processing is performed under the control of the spooler 201 until the print job requested to be printed is completed until the print output is completed.

  Next, when a failure occurs in the printer 40 during execution of the print job requested for printing, the failure content is recorded in an MIB (Management Information Base) installed in the printer 40 corresponding to SNMP, and SNMP is executed. The SNMP manager 208 is notified by transmitting a trap signal indicating an emergency notification of communication or performing a polling operation.

  When the SNMP manager 208 receives a trap signal that is a failure occurrence notification signal for notifying the occurrence of a failure or a notification by a polling operation, the SNMP manager 208 analyzes the content of the notification and determines whether the notification cannot be recovered. At this time, the non-recoverable notification indicates a serious error notification for continuing printing output, and corresponds to a maintenance staff call or the like. If it is determined that the notification cannot be recovered, the MIB is transmitted to the failure analysis unit 209.

  The failure analysis unit 209 acquires and analyzes the MIB when an unrecoverable error occurs. At this time, information on MIB-2 specified by RFC1213, HostResourceMIB specified by RFC1514, and PrinterMIB specified by RFC1759 is acquired.

  The text conversion unit 210 converts the contents of various MIBs acquired by the failure analysis unit 209 into a text format that can be recognized by the user. Further, job information of all jobs is acquired from the spooler 201 and converted into a text format. By notifying the administrator terminal 30 of the converted text format data, it is possible to notify the user of failure information generated in the printer 40.

  With such a configuration, a failure occurring in the printer 40 can be detected by the print control server 20, and the content of the failure can be displayed separately.

  FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing details of the client PC 10 shown in FIG.

  FIG. 3 shows the client PC 10 and the print control server 20 in the system configuration diagram shown in FIG. 1, and further shows details of the client PC 10.

  The client PC 10 includes applications 301-1, 301-n (hereinafter referred to as “application 301”), spoolers 302-1, 302-n (hereinafter referred to as “spooler 302”), and network ports 303-1, 303-. n (hereinafter referred to as “network port 303”).

  The application 301 is software that generates a print job for making a print request. The generated print job is stored in the spooler 302 by giving a print output instruction.

  The spooler 302 is a storage area that temporarily stores a print job for which a print instruction has been issued.

  The network port 303 is an interface that transmits a print job to the print control server 20 connected via the network line 50.

  FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing the flow of print request processing in the client PC of the present invention.

  In FIG. 4, processing is started when a print job is created, and when a user selects a printer (S401), print execution processing is performed (S402). When the print execution process is performed, a trust relationship is confirmed between the spool mounted on the selected printer and the spool mounted on the print control server that performs print control of the print job (S403), and the trust relationship is established. It is determined whether it has been (S404). If the trust relationship has not been established (NO in S404), a print disable notification indicating that print output cannot be performed is created (S405), and notification to that effect is given (S406) to force print request processing. Quit.

  On the other hand, if the trust relationship is established (YES in S404), it is determined that the print output is possible, and the print job is submitted to the spooler of the client PC that issues the print request (S407).

  When a print job is input to the spooler, the print job is transmitted to the print control server via the network line (S408), and the print job is stored in the spooler of the print control server (S409). It is determined whether all print jobs have been accumulated (S410). If spooling is completed (YES in S410), the print request process is terminated. If all the print jobs are not accumulated (NO in S410), the process is repeated from the process (S408) of transmitting another print job to the spooler of the print control server.

  This makes it possible to make a print request to the print control server and the printer for the created print job.

  FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing the flow of print control in the print control server of the present invention.

  In FIG. 5, when a print request is received from a client PC, the process is started, the print job requested for printing is stored in a spool file of a spooler in the selected printer (S501), and monitoring is started on the IPP monitor (S502). .

  The status of the printer selected by the user is acquired (S503), and it is determined whether the printer is ready to receive a print request (S504). If it is determined that reception by the printer is not possible due to reasons such as the printer not being turned on (NO in S504), the process waits until it is determined that reception is possible.

  On the other hand, if the printer is receivable (YES in S504), the job ID is acquired from the spooler (S505), and the job ID acquired by the IPP monitor shown in FIG. 2 is added (S506).

  The spooler job ID is associated with the job ID assigned by the IPP monitor (S507), and a record of the job ID is created and added to the IPP job management table (S508). The job ID created for printing out by the printer designated from the IPP monitor is transmitted to the printer (S509). As a result, the print job is transmitted to the designated printer (S510).

  It is determined whether the created print job has been transmitted (S511). If it has not been completed (NO in S511), transmission of the print job is continued (S510). If the transmission of the print job to the printer is completed (YES in S511), job information is acquired from the printer (S512).

  It is determined whether or not the print job is printed out by the printer and the paper discharge is completed (S513). If the paper discharge is completed and the printing is completed (YES in S513), the job managed in the IPP job management table is determined. The job ID of the print job that has been discharged is searched from the ID (S515). As a result of the search, the spooler is notified of the end of printing based on the matched print job ID (S516), and the received spooler deletes the print job from the spool file based on the job ID (S517).

  If printing has not been completed by the printer (NO in S513), it is determined whether there is a print job in the spooler of the print control server (S514). If there is no print job (NO in S514), all of the jobs are determined. It is determined that print output has been performed for the print job, and the process ends. If there is a print job (YES in S514), the processing after acquiring the job ID of the print job from the spooler (S505) and subsequent steps are repeated.

  As a result, print output is performed.

  FIG. 6 is a flowchart showing the flow of processing in the print control server when a failure occurs in the printer of the present invention.

  In FIG. 6, when a failure occurs in the printer and the failure notification is sent from the printer to the print control server, the process is started, a printer on the network is searched (S601), and the printer exists. Judgment is made (S602). As a notification of the occurrence of a failure at this time, an SNMP trap signal is transmitted to a print control server as a manager, or polling is performed. If there is no printer (NO in S602), the search is performed again. If the printer exists (YES in S602), [ipAdEntAddr] Get, which is an object defined in RFC, is executed, and the IP address assigned to the printer is temporarily saved (S603). Then, [hrDeviceStatus Get] is executed to obtain information indicating the device status in the printer (S604). It is determined from the acquired information whether the printer is down (S605). If the printer is not in a down state such as a normal operation is performed (NO in S605), a search is performed again to select a printer in the down state. Search for.

  If the printer is in the down state (YES in S605), [prtAlertTrainingLevel] Get is executed to acquire the down state level (S606). It is determined whether or not the acquired level is a maintenance personnel call level for calling maintenance personnel (S607). If the acquired level is not a maintenance personnel call level (NO in S607), the processing at the time of occurrence of a failure is terminated.

  On the other hand, if the down state level is the maintenance engineer call level (YES in S607), [prtAlertGroupIndex] Get is executed, and an index value is acquired as preparation for acquiring detailed information of the failure content. Then, a text to be notified to the administrator terminal is created (S608).

  At this time, the following nine items are added as text items to be created.

1. Failure severity [prtAlertSeverityLevel]
2. Printer MIB (RFC1759) group [prtAlertGroup]
3. Fault type [prtAlertCode]
4). Error string information [prtAlertDescription]
5. Printer name [hrDeviceDescr]
6). Energizing time [sysUpTime]
7). Administrator name [sysContact]
8). Installation location [sysLocation]
9. MAC address [ifPhysAddress]
Subsequently, based on the saved IP address (S603), the printer driver of the printer in the down state is identified (S609), and a list of jobs stored in the spool of the identified printer driver is created (S610). The statuses of the print jobs are acquired in order from the print job stored first in the created list (S611), and the status information of all the acquired print jobs is added to the text (S612).

  It is determined whether or not the status information of all the print jobs stored in the spool has been added to the text (S613). If there is status information of a print job that has not been added (NO in S613), the process adds to the text (NO in S613). S612) is repeated. If all jobs have been added (YES in S613), the created text is sent to the administrator terminal (S614).

  As a result, the administrator using the administrator terminal can detect a failure that has occurred in the printer, and more quickly investigate the cause by using the notified text information.

  FIG. 7 is a diagram illustrating the job status of a print job.

  FIG. 7 shows the state of a print job from when a print request is made by the client PC until the paper discharge is completed by the printer.

  First, by making a print request for data created by the application 301-1 installed in the client PC 10-1, the data is temporarily stored as a print job in the spooler 302-1 on the client PC 10-1. Subsequently, the print job stored in the spooler of the client PC 10-1 is spooled to the spool file 204-1 of the print control server 20 (801). At this time, in addition to the state where six print jobs (job numbers: 2 to 7) are stored in the spool file 204-1, one print job (job number: 8) is shown.

  A print job (802) with job numbers 2 to 4 indicates a state in which print control is performed and a print output instruction is sent to the printer 40-1, and indicates that printing is currently being performed or is waiting for a print execution order. ing. A print job in these states is deleted from the spool file in response to a paper discharge completion notification from the printer 40-1.

  A print job (803) with a job number 5 indicates a state in which print control is performed and a print instruction is issued to the printer 40-1, and a print job is stored in the spool of the printer.

  A print job (804) with job numbers 6 and 7 receives a print request from the client PC 10-1, stores it in the spool file of the print control server, and indicates that the print control is currently being executed or is waiting to be started. Show. That is, the print jobs with job numbers 6 and 7 are in a state where no print instruction is given to the printer 40-1. Such a state in the spool can be acquired as position information.

  In addition, job number 1 indicates a state (805) that has been deleted from the spool file upon receipt of the paper discharge completion notification.

  When print control is performed and the printer 40-1 is instructed to print, a job identifier is assigned to each print job by the IPP monitor and stored in the IPP job management table 206-1. At the same time, a print instruction is given to the printer 40-1.

  Upon receiving the print instruction, the printer 40-1 arranges the print jobs on the printer spooler and sequentially executes print output. Currently, the print job with the job number 2 is being executed (807), and the job numbers 3 and 4 are waiting for the print output process (806). That is, the spooler of the printer 40-1 includes a print job currently being executed (job number: 2), a print job waiting for print execution (job numbers: 3 and 4), and a print job being spooled to the printer. A print job in the state of (job number: 5) is stored.

  In the state as described above, the range of the print job notified when a failure occurs in the printer 40-1 is a print job (job number 2 to 8) located in the spool file 204 of the print control server 20. (808).

  When the above processing is performed, the processing can be performed in parallel even when a print request is separately made from the client PC 10-n to the printer 40-n.

  With the above processing, the print control server of the present invention can manage print jobs for each printer, and can acquire the job status (position information) for each print job.

  In addition, SNMP is used for communication between the printer in which the failure has occurred and the print control server, and the printer as the agent notifies the MIB information. It can be performed.

  This makes it possible to grasp the status of a print job when a failure occurs in a printer that supports SNMP.

  Therefore, by applying the present invention, it is possible to specify the content of the failure that has occurred based on the job information of the acquired print job, and the effect that the cause can be investigated quickly can be expected.

  The processing shown in the flowchart can also be realized by a print control program that can be executed by a computer.

  The present invention is not limited to the embodiments described above and shown in the drawings, and can be implemented with appropriate modifications within the scope not changing the gist thereof.

  For example, in the embodiment shown in FIG. 7, the job status of the print job stored in the spool file of the print control server 20 is acquired and the cause of the failure content is investigated. The configuration may be such that the job status of the print job stored in the 1,40-n spool is acquired and the cause is investigated.

  The present invention is applicable to investigating the cause of a failure that has occurred in a printing apparatus that supports each of the SNMP and IPP protocols, and in particular, printing from a mobile terminal such as a printing apparatus or a remote printing system connected to a network in a metaframe environment. This is useful for investigating the cause of a failure that has occurred in an output printing device or the like.

1 is a system configuration diagram configured by applying a printing system, a print control server, a failure information acquisition method and a program according to the present invention. FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing in detail a print control server in the system configuration diagram shown in FIG. The block diagram which showed the detail of client PC shown in FIG. 6 is a flowchart showing a flow of print request processing in the client PC of the present invention. 6 is a flowchart showing a flow of print control in the print control server of the present invention. 6 is a flowchart showing a flow of processing in a print control server when a failure occurs in the printer of the present invention. FIG. 4 is a diagram illustrating a job status of a print job.

Explanation of symbols

10-1 to 10-n Client PC
20 Print Control Server 30 Administrator Terminal 40-1 to 40-n Printer 50 Network Line 201 Spooler 202-1 to 202-n GDI
203-1 to 203-n Printer driver 204-1 to 204-n Spool file 205-1 to 205-n IPP monitor 206-1 to 206-n IPP job management table 207 Network port 208 SNMP manager 209 Failure analysis unit 210 Text Conversion unit

Claims (5)

A plurality of print requesting devices and a plurality of printing devices are connected via a network, and the print requesting device specifies the printing device and transfers a print job to the specified printing device via a print control server. In a printing system that makes a print request by
The print control server
Network monitoring means for monitoring the status of the plurality of printing devices using a simple network management protocol;
When a failure occurs in any one of the plurality of printing devices, an analysis unit that analyzes a failure content of the printing device by monitoring by the network monitoring unit;
Determination means for determining whether the printing apparatus cannot recover from a failure based on an analysis result by the analysis means;
A printing system comprising: a print job specifying unit that specifies a print job related to the occurrence of a failure using an Internet printing protocol when the determination unit determines that the printing apparatus cannot recover from the failure. . The print job specifying means includes:
The print job related to the occurrence of the failure is identified by discriminating the print job stored in the printing device determined to be unable to recover from the failure and the print job being transferred from the spooler in the print control server to the printing device. The printing system according to claim 1. Connected to a network to which a plurality of print request devices and a plurality of print devices are connected, receives a print job specifying the print device from the print request device, and transfers the print job to the print device to control printing In the print control server that performs
Network monitoring means for monitoring the status of the plurality of printing devices using a simple network management protocol;
When a failure occurs in any one of the plurality of printing devices, an analysis unit that analyzes a failure content of the printing device by monitoring by the network monitoring unit;
Determination means for determining whether the printing apparatus cannot recover from a failure based on an analysis result by the analysis means;
Print job specifying means for specifying a print job relating to the occurrence of a failure using an Internet printing protocol when the determination means determines that the printing apparatus cannot recover from the failure. server. A plurality of print requesting devices and a plurality of printing devices are connected via a network, and the print requesting device specifies the printing device and transfers a print job to the specified printing device via a print control server. A failure information acquisition method in a printing system that makes a print request by
The print control server monitors the status of the plurality of printing apparatuses with a network monitoring unit using a simple network management protocol,
When it is detected by the monitoring by the network monitoring means that a failure has occurred in any of the plurality of printing devices, the failure content of the printing device in which the failure has occurred is analyzed by the analysis means,
Based on the analysis result by the analysis unit, the determination unit determines whether the printer cannot recover from the failure,
A failure information acquisition method characterized in that when the determination unit determines that the printing apparatus is unable to recover from a failure, the print job specifying unit specifies a print job related to the failure using an Internet printing protocol. A plurality of print requesting devices and a plurality of printing devices are connected via a network, and the print requesting device specifies the printing device and transfers a print job to the specified printing device via a print control server. A fault information acquisition program that executes fault information acquisition in a printing system that makes a print request by
A first step in which the print control server monitors the status of the plurality of printing devices using a simple network management protocol;
A second step of analyzing a failure content of the printing device in which the failure has occurred, when detecting that a failure has occurred in any of the plurality of printing devices in the first step;
A third step of determining, based on the analysis result of the second step, whether the faulty printing apparatus cannot recover from the fault;
And a fourth step of identifying a print job related to the occurrence of the failure using an Internet printing protocol when the printing device is determined to be unable to recover from the failure in the determination of the third step. Failure information acquisition program.

Images