JP3143919B2 - Communication parameter management method - Google Patents

Description

Description: BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a communication parameter management system, and more particularly to a communication parameter management system for centrally managing communication parameters used in a communication application of a computer system constituting a network.

[Conventional technology]

Conventionally, communication parameters in a computer system having a network configuration (various parameters used in a communication application are collectively referred to as communication parameters) have been individually managed by a management file for each computer.
Therefore, if there is a change in a certain communication parameter, the administrator of each computer must accurately understand which communication file and which communication parameter will be affected. Was corrected by

In recent years, in a system under LAN environment, a database that centrally manages communication parameters is often implemented,
Since there is no description about the correlation between the communication parameters in this database, it is necessary to perform manual management by the administrator as in the case described above.

[Problems to be solved by the invention]

In the conventional communication parameter management method described above, since a large number of communication parameters are manually managed using the memory of the administrator, a change in one communication parameter may affect other correlated communication parameters. However, there is a drawback that a mistake occurs in which the communication application malfunctions by forgetting to correct the communication parameter.

Furthermore, when a new communication application is introduced to a computer, the computer administrator must recognize the correlation with the existing communication parameters and correct the affected communication parameters. There is a disadvantage that the burden is large.

An object of the present invention is to provide a communication parameter management method that can reduce the load on an administrator and prevent malfunction from occurring by centrally managing communication parameters including correlation.

[Means for solving the problem]

The communication parameter management method according to the present invention is a communication parameter management method in which various communication parameters used in communication applications of a plurality of computers are centrally managed by a communication parameter server on one computer. A library base that stores the conversion calculation procedure using one of the two communication parameters as an argument and the other as a return value, using the procedure call name as a key, and using the communication parameter name as a key, its actual value or procedure call for reference and update The communication parameter base storing the name and the communication parameter based on the communication parameter that is correlated by the corresponding conversion calculation procedure by referring to the library base when the procedure call name is obtained by searching the communication parameter base. Required communication parameter processor And it is configured to include and.

〔Example〕

Next, embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing the configuration of the entire system according to an embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 3 is a block diagram for explaining an outline of communication between a communication parameter server and a client in FIG. FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a module configuration of a communication parameter server in FIG.

First, a system environment to which the present invention is applied will be described with reference to FIG.

In this embodiment, five computers are connected on the LAN 3, and the computers can communicate with each other. One of the computers is a communication parameter server 1 for centrally managing communication parameters used in each computer, and the other four computers on which general communication applications are mounted are clients 2a to 2d.

When a communication application mounted on the clients 2a to 2d references / updates a certain communication parameter, the communication is performed with the communication parameter server 1 as illustrated by a solid line 101, and the communication parameter server 1 specifies the specified communication parameter. Execute the processing for. The communication parameter server 1 is connected to an OSI-compliant wide area network 4 via a line 5 and is used in a communication application used for communication with the wide area network 4 (via the lines 5c and 5d) mounted on the clients 2c and 2d. It is also possible to respond to a request for reference / update of

FIG. 3 shows an outline of communication between the client 2i (i = a to d) and the communication parameter server 1.
The client 2i and the communication parameter server 1 are implemented in a normal client / server model. Arrow 102
The communication form between the two is indicated by the remote communication call (hereafter RP
C)). The client 2i includes a communication application 21 and an RPC client module 22
Is implemented, and the communication parameter server 1 has an RPC
A server module 11, a main module 12, and a communication parameter base 13 are mounted. The main module 12 can communicate with the wide area network 4.

FIG. 1 is a configuration diagram in which the communication parameter server 1 of FIG. 3 is modularized in more detail. The main module 12 shown in FIG. 3 includes a DUA module 14, a communication parameter base access module 15, a library base 16,
It comprises a library base access module 17, a communication parameter processing module 18, and a judgment module 19.

The features of this communication parameter management method are the data storage method in the communication parameter base 13 and the library base 16 and the processing method in the communication parameter processing module 18. The details, the operation of each module, and the interoperation between modules will be described in detail with an operation example described later.

The RPC server module 11 is connected to the LAN 3 and receives a request for a communication parameter value from a client and transmits a desired communication parameter value. The DUA module 14 is a DSA (Directory Server) in the wide area network 4.
vice Agency) 41 via a communication line, and each DSA
Can access the communication parameters stored therein.

Next, the operation of the present embodiment configured as described above will be described.

First, with reference to FIG. 3, an outline of the operation of the communication application 21 for accessing / updating the communication parameters will be described.

First, in the client 2i, the request from the communication application 21 is converted into the RPC format by the RPC client module 22, and is sent to the communication parameter server 1. The communication application 21 waits until a response is returned from the communication parameter server 1. Next, the communication parameter server 1 sends the request from the client 2i to the RPC server module 1
1 is extracted from the RPC format and sent to the main module 12. The main module 12 analyzes the transmitted request, and manages the communication parameter base 13 managed in the communication parameter server 1.
It is determined whether the communication parameter is stored in a database in the wide area network 4 or not, and a reference / update operation relating to a requested communication parameter is performed for each target according to the determination (arrows 103 and 104). The response returned to the main module 12 is finally returned to the communication application 21 via the RPC server module 11 and the RPC client module 22.
21 starts execution.

Here, a method of storing data for explicitly expressing a correlation between communication parameters, which is a feature of the present communication parameter management method, will be described with reference to FIGS. 4 and 5. FIG.

In FIG. 4, it is assumed that the communication parameter A and the communication parameter B have a correlation, and that the value of the communication parameter B can be derived from the value of the communication parameter A. At that time, when a request for reference regarding the communication parameter B is made, the communication parameter B is created by processing the value of the communication parameter A in the communication parameter processing module 18 which is one module in the main module 12. The communication parameter B has no substance of the value and is always created from the value of the communication parameter A every time there is a reference request. The actual correlation is stored in advance in the library base 16 as a library in the form of a procedure call in which the value of the communication parameter A is used as an argument and the value of the communication parameter B is used as a return value. Describes the processing procedure of the communication parameters.

Therefore, the value of the communication parameter B necessarily has a correlation with the value of the communication parameter A. That is, when the value of the communication parameter A is updated, the update is simultaneously reflected in the value of the communication parameter B.

When there is a request for updating the value of the communication parameter B, the value of the communication parameter A having a correlation is updated. That is, in the case of updating as in the case of referring to the communication parameter B, the procedure call for updating is registered as a library in the library base 16 and the communication parameter processing module 18 updates the value of the communication parameter A accordingly. Is performed.

By using this method, the communication parameter B can be seen from the communication application of the client as if the communication parameter B has the substance of the value, and the correlation with the communication parameter A is internally specified in the form of a procedure call. Can be expressed

FIG. 5 shows a method of holding the communication parameters A and B in the communication parameter base 13. It is assumed that both the communication parameter A and the communication parameter B are stored in the communication parameter base 13. The communication parameter A is composed of a key 51 and a value 52 as an entry of the communication parameter base 13 as shown in FIG. On the other hand, the communication parameter B includes, as entries in the communication parameter base 13, a key 53, a reference access procedure call name 54, and an update access procedure call name.
It consists of 55. The two procedure call names are the procedure call names used for reference and update in the description of FIG.

According to this holding method, when registering a communication parameter in a communication parameter server when a new communication application is implemented in a client, it is only necessary to add an entry of a communication parameter to be registered. There is no need to change any of the communication parameter entries that exist in. Also, a new correlation between communication parameters can be realized by adding a new procedure call to the library base 16 as a library. Therefore, even if a new communication application is added during the operation of the computer, it can be put into an operable state by simply adding the existing one without greatly changing the existing one. It can be said that there is.

Next, a specific operation example of the communication parameter server to which the above-described methods of FIGS. 4 and 5 are applied will be described. With reference to FIG. 1, an access flow of each reference access of the communication parameter A and the communication parameter B which are typical communication parameters of the holding method will be described.

(A) In the case of reference access of the communication parameter A This communication parameter is a typical example of a communication parameter having a value entity in an entry in the communication parameter base 13.

(1) A request for reference to the communication parameter A from the client is sent from the LAN 3 to the RPC server module 11 in the communication parameter server 1 in the RPC format.

(2) The RPC server module 11 extracts a reference request for the communication parameter A from the format of the received RPC and sends the request to the determination module 19 (arrow 105).

(3) In the determination module 19, the communication parameter base access module
The communication parameter A key is sent to 15 (arrow 106).

(4) The communication parameter base access module 15
Using the transmitted communication parameter A key, the user accesses the communication parameter base 13 for reference, and sends the returned communication parameter A value to the determination module 19 (arrow 10).
7).

(5) The determination module 19 determines whether the returned value is a substantial value or a reference access procedure call name, and controls the flow of processing. Reference access to communication parameter A returns a substantial value.
The data is directly transmitted from the LAN 3 to the client via the RPC server module 11 (arrow 108).

(B) In the case of reference access of the communication parameter B This communication parameter is a typical example of a communication parameter having a procedure call name in an entry in the communication parameter base 13.

(1) The operation up to the operation of the arrow 107 is the same as the case of the reference access of the communication parameter A.

(2) In the reference access of the communication parameter B, what is returned from the communication parameter base access module 15 is the name of the reference access procedure call, which is different from the processing flow in the case of the reference access of the communication parameter A. . That is, if the judgment module 19 judges that the name is a reference procedure name, the procedure name is sent to the library base access module 17 (arrow 109).

(3) The library base access module 17 takes out the procedure call execution unit corresponding to the procedure call name sent from the determination module 19 from the library base 16 and sends it to the communication parameter processing module 18 (arrow 110).

(4) The communication parameter processing module 18 actually executes the procedure call execution unit and creates a desired communication parameter from the communication parameters having a correlation. In the case of the communication parameter B, since it is created from the value of the communication parameter A, a request is issued to the communication parameter base access module 15 to obtain the value, and the value of the communication parameter B is created from the returned value (arrows 111 and 112). .

(5) If the value returned by the arrow 112 is not the entity of the value of the communication parameter but the procedure call name, the procedure call niece is sent to the library base access module 17 again (arrow 113), and the procedure call name is returned. Fetch the execution part (arrow 110). Thereafter, each procedure call is executed in the manner of a general stack that calls a procedure call in a procedure call, and desired communication parameters are created.

(6) Among the procedure calls being executed, one of the directory systems DSA4 in the OSI-compliant wide area network 4
When it is necessary to refer to the communication parameters managed by 1, the DUA module 14 (DUA
Agency) (arrow 114). DUA module 14 is DSA41
To obtain the value of the communication parameter and return it to the communication parameter processing module 18 (arrow 115).

(7) When the communication parameter processing module 18 creates a desired communication parameter B value, it sends it to the RPC server module 11 (arrow 116) and returns the value to the client using LAN3.

The above is the flow of processing at the time of reference access. The flow of processing for update access is almost the same as the flow of reference access. The only difference is the communication parameter base.
When updating access to 13 (arrows 106, 107, 111, 112),
In the case of the communication parameter A, the value is directly updated, and the success / failure of the update is returned. In the case of the communication parameter B, only the update access procedure call name is returned.

〔The invention's effect〕

As described above in detail, the following effects can be obtained by using the communication parameter management method of the present invention.

(1) The management of a large number of communication parameters is released from the computer administrator's hand, and it is possible to easily change the correlated communication parameters from the unified management of the communication parameters and the procedure call describing the correlation. In addition, it is possible to reduce mistakes in changing communication parameters.

(2) When newly introducing a communication application to a computer, the computer administrator can do so without worrying about the correlation with the communication parameters that already exist.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a module configuration of a communication parameter server according to an embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing an overall system configuration of an embodiment of the present invention, and FIG.
FIG. 4 is a block diagram for explaining an outline of communication between a client and a communication parameter server, FIG. 4 is a block diagram for explaining a concept of a conversion processing method of a communication parameter having a correlation, and FIG. 5 is a communication parameter. FIG. 4 is an explanatory diagram of a method of holding communication parameters in a base. 1 ... communication parameter server, 2i (i = ad) ... client, 3 ... LAN, 4 ... wide area network, 5,5
c, 5d ... line, 11 ... RPC server module, 12 ... main module, 13 ... communication parameter base, 14 ... DUA
Module, 15: Communication parameter base access module, 16: Library base, 17: Library base access module, 18: Communication parameter processing module, 19: Judgment module, 21: Communication application, 22: RPC client Module, 41 …… D
SA, 51, 53 ... key, 52 ... value, 54 ... reference access procedure call name, 55 ... update access procedure call name.

──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continued on the front page (58) Fields investigated (Int. Cl. ⁷ , DB name) G06F 13/00 G06F 9/06 H04L 29/00

Claims (1)

(57) [Claims] 1. A communication parameter management system in which various communication parameters used in communication applications of a plurality of computers are centrally managed by a communication parameter server on one computer, wherein the communication parameter server has two correlated communications. A library base that stores the procedure calculation name with one of the parameters as an argument and the other as a return value with the procedure call name as a key, and the actual value or reference and update procedure call names with the communication parameter name as a key A communication parameter base and a communication parameter processing for obtaining a correlated communication parameter from a base communication parameter by a corresponding conversion calculation procedure by referring to the library base when a procedure call name is obtained by searching the communication parameter base; Characterized by having means Communication parameter management system to.