JP2018124830A - Message transfer and aggregation device, and message transfer and aggregation method - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To improve an efficiency of a message transfer between an application and a terminal.SOLUTION: A message transfer and aggregation device includes an application message receiving unit for receiving an application message, an application message destination determination unit for determining a transmission destination terminal of the application message on the basis of a content of the application message, an application message transfer unit for transferring the application message to the transmission destination terminal, a reply message receiving unit for receiving a reply message transmitted from the transmission destination terminal, a reply message aggregation unit for generating an aggregate message that the received reply message has been aggregated, and an aggregate message transfer unit for transferring the aggregate message to the application.SELECTED DRAWING: Figure 4

Description

  The present invention relates to a message transfer and aggregation device, and a message transfer and aggregation method. In particular, the present invention efficiently transfers a message between an application and a terminal in a form in which data is transmitted from a plurality of terminals to the application in response to a message from the application (for example, a situation in which the terminal responds to the application). It is related to the technique.

  Traffic on the Internet is composed of large data such as file transfer, but in recent years, extremely small data that is transmitted from the sensor device or transmitted toward the sensor device is mixed. When such extremely small data flows intermittently in large quantities, there is a problem that the communication performance of the entire network deteriorates due to restrictions on data processing capability.

  In the case of “sent toward the sensor device”, a message transfer technique has been proposed (see Non-Patent Document 1). As shown in FIG. 1, a plurality of terminals such as sensor devices are accommodated in a gateway device, and an application collects a plurality of messages into one (the contents are composed of a plurality of messages) and transmits them to the gateway device. Thus, the gateway device distributes the message to the terminal.

  In a case of “sent from a sensor device”, a message aggregation technique has been proposed (see Non-Patent Document 2). As shown in FIG. 2, in this technique, first, an aggregation period based on a data waiting time is set in advance in a device arranged at the edge of the network. Then, various data transferred within the set period are aggregated and transferred. As a result, the data processing load is reduced, and the reduction in communication performance of the entire network is attempted.

"Smart IoT Lighting-This is Philips Hue," Internet URL <http://www2.meethue.com/en-US/>, Searched on December 20, 2016 Anami Sawabe, Kazuya Tsukamoto, Yuji Oie, "Aggregation packet configuration method considering communication quality requirements of various applications," IEICE NS Society, 2013.11

  As described above, in the message transfer technique of Non-Patent Document 1, when different operations are performed for each terminal, messages directed to individual terminals are simply combined into one data. In other words, the message transmission is conscious of the connection configuration of the terminals accommodated in the gateway device. Therefore, as the number of terminals that wish to send messages increases, the message capacity itself becomes enormous.

  In order to transmit a message more efficiently, it is necessary to transmit the message without being aware of the connection configuration of the terminal.

  In the message aggregation technique of Non-Patent Document 2, the aggregation is performed taking into consideration only the waiting time, and therefore, aggregated data includes various destinations. Therefore, it cannot be transferred to the transmission destination in a state of being aggregated. That is, in the middle of the transfer, it takes time to disassemble the original state again.

  In order to transfer data more efficiently, it is desirable to aggregate the data so that the data can be transferred without being disassembled. That is, according to the characteristics of the transmission destination and the data itself, it is necessary to classify and aggregate the data so that the data can be transferred to the transmission destination without being decomposed during the transfer.

  The present invention improves the efficiency of message transfer between an application and a terminal in a form in which data is transmitted from a plurality of terminals to a transmission source application (a situation in which the terminal responds to the application) in response to a message from the application. Objective.

A message transfer and aggregation device according to an aspect of the present invention is provided.
A message transfer and aggregation device that receives an application message transmitted from an application and transfers it to a plurality of terminals, receives a reply message transmitted from the plurality of terminals, and transfers the message to the application,
An application message receiver for receiving application messages;
An application message destination determination unit that determines a destination terminal of the application message based on the content of the application message;
An application message transfer unit that transfers the application message to the destination terminal;
A reply message receiver for receiving a reply message transmitted from the destination terminal;
A reply message aggregating unit that generates an aggregate message in which the received reply messages are aggregated;
An aggregate message transfer unit for transferring the aggregate message to the application;
Have

The message transfer and aggregation method according to an aspect of the present invention includes:
This is a message transfer and aggregation method in a message transfer and aggregation device that receives an application message transmitted from an application and transfers it to a plurality of terminals, receives a reply message transmitted from the plurality of terminals and transfers it to the application. And
Receiving an application message;
Determining a destination terminal of the application message based on the content of the application message;
Transferring the application message to the destination terminal;
Receiving a reply message transmitted from the destination terminal;
Generating an aggregate message that aggregates the received reply messages;
Forwarding the aggregate message to the application;
Have

  According to the present invention, in a mode in which data is transmitted from a plurality of terminals to a transmission source application in response to a message from an application (a situation in which the terminal responds to the application), message transfer between the application and the terminal is made efficient It becomes possible.

It is a conceptual diagram which shows the message transfer technique by a prior art. It is a conceptual diagram which shows the message aggregation technique by a prior art. 1 is an overall configuration diagram of a communication system according to an embodiment of the present invention. It is a figure which shows the outline | summary of the message transfer and aggregation in the communication system which concerns on the Example of this invention. It is a block diagram which shows the function structural example of the message transfer / aggregation apparatus which concerns on the Example of this invention. It is a figure which shows the processing flow until application message transfer. It is a figure which shows the processing flow of the message aggregation after reply message reception. It is a figure which shows an example of application message transmission destination terminal DB. It is a figure which shows an example of a reply message aggregation rule DB. It is a figure which shows the hardware structural example of the message transfer / aggregation apparatus which concerns on the Example of this invention.

  Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

<Overall configuration of communication system>
FIG. 3 shows the overall configuration of a communication system according to an embodiment of the present invention. The communication system according to the embodiment of the present invention includes a message transfer / aggregation apparatus 100, an application 200, and a plurality of terminals 300. The message transfer / aggregation apparatus 100, the application 200, and the plurality of terminals 300 are connected to each other by a communication network.

  The application 200 is an application that transmits a message to the terminal 300 and receives a message from the terminal 300. In general, the application 200 is installed in a computer or the like, and the service of the application 200 is provided by a service provider. The application 200 communicates with a terminal via a communication network.

  The communication network is a network that connects the message transfer / aggregation apparatus 100, the application 200, and the terminal 300, and is, for example, a network that supports a TCP / IP (Transmission Control Protocol / Internet Protocol) protocol stack.

  The message transfer / aggregation apparatus 100 receives a message transmitted from the application 200 (hereinafter referred to as an application message), transfers the message to the plurality of terminals 300, and returns a message (hereinafter referred to as a reply message) from the plurality of terminals 300. Device) and transfer it to the application 200. The message transfer / aggregation apparatus 100 can aggregate the reply messages and transfer them to the terminal 300 (hereinafter, the aggregated reply messages are referred to as an aggregate message). Details will be described later.

  The terminal 300 is a terminal that receives a message from the application 200 and transmits a message to the application 200. The terminal 300 communicates with the application 200 via a communication network.

  FIG. 4 shows an outline of message transfer / aggregation in the communication system according to the embodiment of the present invention. In FIG. 4, for convenience of explanation, numbers are assigned to each step of the processing flow, and the processing flow is described in the order of steps. However, parallel processing can be performed as long as there is no particular contradiction.

  The application 200 transmits an application message to the message transfer / aggregation apparatus 100 without being aware of the terminal configuration (S110). The message transfer / aggregation apparatus 100 determines the destination terminal 300 of the application message based on the content of the application message, and creates a list of destination terminals (S120). The message transfer / aggregation apparatus 100 transfers the application message to each terminal 300 (S130). When the terminal 300 transmits a reply message (S140), the message transfer / aggregation apparatus 100 buffers the reply message. The message transfer / aggregation apparatus 100 collates the terminal 300 that has received the reply message with the list of destination terminals, and collects the reply message for the application message that is the transmission source when the reply message is received from all the terminals 300. (S150). Then, the message transfer / aggregation apparatus 100 transfers the aggregation message to the application 200 (S160).

<Functional configuration of message transfer / aggregation device>
FIG. 5 shows a functional configuration example of the message transfer / aggregation apparatus 100. The message transfer / aggregation apparatus 100 includes a communication function unit 110 and a message processing unit 120. The functions of the message transfer / aggregation apparatus 100 mainly include two functional units and functional units classified therein, but other functions / configurations are not excluded. Also, from the viewpoint of mounting, these functional units do not need to be mounted as one node. There are no restrictions on mounting, etc., except for communication units that are commonly used by other function units.

  The communication function unit 110 has a message receiving function for receiving application messages and reply messages. Further, the communication function unit 110 has a message transfer function of transferring an application message to the terminal 300 and transferring a reply message or an aggregate message to the application 200.

  For convenience, the communication function unit 110 is classified into an application message reception unit 111, an application message transfer unit 112, a reply message reception unit 113, a reply message transfer unit 114, and an aggregate message transfer unit 115. The application message receiving unit 111 receives an application message transmitted from the application 200. The application message transfer unit 112 transfers the application message to the destination terminal. The reply message receiving unit 113 receives a reply message transmitted from the application message destination terminal. The reply message transfer unit 114 transfers the reply message to the application 200. The aggregate message transfer unit 115 transfers the aggregate message to the application 200.

  The message processing unit 120 includes a message analysis unit 121, an application message destination determination unit 122, an application message transmission destination terminal list creation unit 123, a reply message aggregation rule extraction unit 124, a reply message aggregation necessity determination unit 125, A reply message buffering unit 126, a reply message aggregation unit 127, an application message destination terminal DB (database) 128, and a reply message aggregation rule DB 129 are included.

  The message analysis unit 121 analyzes the contents of the application message or the reply message. The application message destination determination unit 122 determines the destination terminal of the application message based on the analyzed contents of the application message and the information in the application message destination terminal DB 128. The application message transmission destination terminal DB 128 is a database that holds information indicating to which terminal the application message should be transmitted in accordance with the contents of the analyzed application message. That is, the application message destination terminal DB 128 stores the correspondence between the contents of the application message and the destination terminal, and the application message destination determination unit 122 refers to the application message destination terminal DB 128 and refers to the application message. The destination terminal corresponding to the contents of is determined. The application message transmission destination terminal list creation unit 123 creates a list of application message transmission destination terminals.

  The reply message aggregation rule extraction unit 124 extracts, from the reply message aggregation rule DB 129, an aggregation rule indicating how to aggregate according to the combination of reply message contents from the terminals recorded in the destination terminal list. The reply message aggregation rule DB 129 is a database that holds an aggregation rule indicating how to aggregate according to a combination of reply message contents from terminals recorded in the destination terminal list.

  Based on the content of the reply message and the information extracted from the reply message aggregation rule DB 129, the reply message aggregation necessity determination unit 125 determines whether the reply message is to be aggregated.

  The reply message buffering unit 126 buffers reply messages from each terminal in the destination terminal list based on the result of the reply message aggregation necessity determination unit 125. Since the terminal from which the reply message is received can also be grasped from the list of destination terminals created in the application message destination terminal list creation unit 123, the reply message buffering unit 126 is added to the list of destination terminals. The reply messages to be aggregated may be buffered until reply messages are received from all the included terminals.

  The reply message aggregating unit 127 generates an aggregate message in which the reply messages to be aggregated are aggregated. The reply message aggregating unit 127 aggregates the reply messages buffered by the reply message buffering unit 126 into one message when receiving reply messages from all the terminals included in the list of destination terminals. As described above, the reply message aggregation rule DB 129 stores the contents of the aggregate message according to the combination of the contents of the reply message from the transmission destination terminal. The reply message aggregation unit 127 refers to the reply message aggregation rule DB 129 and generates an aggregate message corresponding to the contents of the reply messages to be aggregated.

<Processing flow in message transfer / aggregation device>
A processing flow and a specific example in the message transfer / aggregation apparatus 100 will be described with reference to FIGS.

  FIG. 6 is an example of a typical processing flow up to application message transfer. Here, processing related to the communication function unit 110 is omitted because it is related to general communication processing.

  First, the application message receiving unit 111 receives an application message from the application 200 (S210).

  The message analysis unit 121 analyzes the content of the application message (S220), and the application message destination determination unit 122 transfers the application message to which terminal based on the content of the application message and the information in the application message destination terminal DB 128. It is determined whether it should be sufficient (S230). In this embodiment, as an example, the terminal is determined based on the subject of the application message as shown in FIG. In the application message transmission destination terminal DB 128, for example, when “all” is included in the subject of the application message, the application message is transmitted to all of the terminals a to c, and “case1” is included in the subject of the application message. Is included in advance, information that an application message is transmitted to the terminal a and the terminal b is set in advance. In addition, not only the subject of an application message but the other information of an application message may be used for determination of a terminal.

  Next, the reply message aggregation necessity determination unit 125 determines whether to aggregate the reply messages related to the application message based on the contents of the application message and the information of the reply message aggregation rule DB 129 (S240). In the present embodiment, the determination is made based on the presence / absence of the aggregation rule based on the subject of the application message as shown in FIG. In the reply message aggregation rule DB 129, for example, “all” is included in the subject of the application message, and when a reply message “OK” is received from all of the terminals a to c, the aggregation “OK” is performed. The message includes “all” in the subject of the application message, and when a reply message “NG” is received from any of the terminals a to c or a reply message is received from any of the terminals a to c If not, the information that the aggregation message “NG” is set in advance. When the reply messages are not aggregated (S240: NO), the application message is transferred (S270), but this flow is not considered in this embodiment.

  Next, the application message destination terminal list creation unit 123 creates an application message destination terminal list (S250). In the present embodiment, the application message destination terminal DB 128 as shown in FIG. For example, when “all” is included in the subject of the application message, all of the terminals a to c are set in the destination terminal list.

  Next, the reply message aggregation rule extraction unit 124 extracts a reply message aggregation rule based on the application message destination terminal list (S260). In this embodiment, the reply message aggregation rule DB 129 as shown in FIG. 9 is used. For example, when “all” is included in the subject of the application message, a reply message aggregation rule corresponding to “all” is extracted.

  The application message transfer unit 112 transfers the application message to each terminal based on the application message transmission destination terminal list (S270).

  FIG. 7 is an example of a typical processing flow of message aggregation after receiving a reply message. Similar to FIG. 6, the processing related to the communication function unit 110 is omitted because it is related to general communication processing.

  The reply message receiving unit 113 transmits a reply message based on the message from the application 200 from the terminal 300 (S310). The message analysis unit 121 analyzes the content of the reply message (S320), and the reply message aggregation necessity determination unit 125 determines whether to aggregate this reply message based on the content of the reply message and the information of the reply message aggregation rule DB 129. (S330). When reply messages are not aggregated (S330: NO), reply messages are transferred (S340), but this flow is not considered in this embodiment.

  The reply message buffering unit 126 buffers until reply messages are received from all terminals in the destination terminal list (S350). After receiving the reply message from all the terminals in the destination terminal list (S360), the reply message aggregating unit 127 aggregates the reply message into one message based on the aggregation rule (S370). The aggregate message transfer unit 115 transfers the aggregate message to the application (S380).

<Hardware configuration example>
FIG. 10 shows a hardware configuration example of the message transfer / aggregation apparatus 100 according to the embodiment of the present invention. The message transfer / aggregation apparatus 100 is a computer including a processor such as a CPU (Central Processing Unit) 151, a memory device 152 such as a RAM (Random Access Memory) and a ROM (Read Only Memory), a storage device 153 such as a hard disk, and the like. But you can. For example, the functions and processing of the message transfer / aggregation device 100 are realized by the CPU 151 executing data and programs stored in the storage device 153 or the memory device 152. Information necessary for the message transfer / aggregation apparatus 100 may be input from the input / output interface apparatus 154, and a result obtained by the message transfer / aggregation apparatus 100 may be output from the input / output interface apparatus 154.

<Effect of the embodiment of the present invention>
According to the embodiment of the present invention, in a mode in which data is transmitted from a plurality of terminals to a transmission source application (situation in which the terminal responds to the application) in response to a message from the application, message transfer between the application and the terminal is performed. It becomes possible to improve efficiency.

  The application only needs to transmit a message to the message transfer / aggregation device, and does not need to be aware of the connection configuration of terminals accommodated under the communication system. The message transfer / aggregation apparatus can determine the destination terminal of the application message based on the content of the application message and transfer the application message to each terminal.

  Further, the message transfer / aggregation apparatus aggregates and transfers only the reply messages from the terminals in response to the application message as the transmission source. As described above, since the application message is transmitted to the message transfer / aggregation device, it is possible to transfer the reply message to the application in a state of being aggregated.

<Supplement>
For convenience of explanation, the message transfer / aggregation apparatus according to the embodiment of the present invention is described using a functional block diagram. However, the message transfer / aggregation apparatus according to the embodiment of the present invention may be hardware, software, or A combination thereof may be realized. For example, the embodiment of the present invention causes a computer to execute the function of the message transfer / aggregation apparatus according to the embodiment of the present invention, and causes the computer to execute each procedure of the method according to the embodiment of the present invention. It may be realized by a program or the like. In addition, the functional units may be used in combination as necessary. In addition, the method according to the embodiment of the present invention may be performed in an order different from the order shown in the embodiment.

  As described above, in the form of transmitting data from a plurality of terminals to a transmission source application in response to a message from the application (a situation in which the terminal responds to the application), a method for improving the efficiency of message transfer between the application and the terminal As described above, the present invention is not limited to the above-described embodiments, and various modifications and applications are possible within the scope of the claims.

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 100 Message transfer / aggregation apparatus 110 Communication function part 111 Application message receiving part 112 Application message transfer part 113 Reply message receiving part 114 Reply message transfer part 115 Aggregate message transfer part 120 Message processing part 121 Message analysis part 122 Application message destination determination part 123 Application message transmission destination terminal list creation unit 124 Reply message aggregation rule extraction unit 125 Reply message aggregation necessity determination unit 126 Reply message buffering unit 127 Reply message aggregation unit 128 Application message transmission destination terminal DB
129 Reply message aggregation rule DB

Claims (5)

A message transfer and aggregation device that receives an application message transmitted from an application and transfers it to a plurality of terminals, receives a reply message transmitted from the plurality of terminals, and transfers the message to the application,
An application message receiver for receiving application messages;
An application message destination determination unit that determines a destination terminal of the application message based on the content of the application message;
An application message transfer unit that transfers the application message to the destination terminal;
A reply message receiver for receiving a reply message transmitted from the destination terminal;
A reply message aggregating unit that generates an aggregate message in which the received reply messages are aggregated;
An aggregate message transfer unit for transferring the aggregate message to the application;
A message transfer and aggregation device. An application message destination terminal list creation unit for creating a list of destination terminals of the application message;
A reply message buffering unit that buffers the reply message until receiving reply messages from all terminals included in the list of destination terminals;
Further comprising
The reply message aggregating unit aggregates the reply messages buffered by the reply message buffering unit when receiving reply messages from all terminals included in the list of destination terminals. Message transfer and aggregation device. An application message destination terminal storage unit that stores the correspondence between the contents of the application message and the destination terminal;
The message transfer and aggregation device according to claim 1, wherein the application message destination determination unit determines a transmission destination terminal corresponding to the content of the application message with reference to the application message transmission destination terminal storage unit. A reply message aggregation rule storage unit that stores the contents of the aggregate message according to the combination of the contents of the reply message from the destination terminal;
The message according to any one of claims 1 to 3, wherein the reply message aggregating unit generates an aggregated message corresponding to the content of the received reply message with reference to the reply message aggregation rule storage unit. Transfer and aggregation device. This is a message transfer and aggregation method in a message transfer and aggregation device that receives an application message transmitted from an application and transfers it to a plurality of terminals, receives a reply message transmitted from the plurality of terminals and transfers it to the application. And
Receiving an application message;
Determining a destination terminal of the application message based on the content of the application message;
Transferring the application message to the destination terminal;
Receiving a reply message transmitted from the destination terminal;
Generating an aggregate message that aggregates the received reply messages;
Forwarding the aggregate message to the application;
A message transfer and aggregation method comprising:

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