JP4125579B2 - Computer maintenance fee discount system - Google Patents

Description

[0001]
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a computer maintenance fee discount system that discounts a maintenance fee concluded with a maintenance company when a failure occurs in a computer system.
[0002]
[Prior art]
A user of a computer system enters into a maintenance contract for a certain computer system configuration with a maintenance company and pays a maintenance fee. However, a computer system may fail and become unusable or forced to perform degenerate operation. In such a case, until the computer system is restored to its original state, there will be no maintenance target computer system or the scale of the configuration will be reduced, so the computer maintenance fee should be discounted. is there.
[0003]
As a conventional technology of this kind, the required value for storage performance is set based on the service level guarantee contract concluded for storage performance, and the average value of the operation status calculated from the results of monitoring the operation status of the storage system is It is known that all or part of the usage fee paid based on the service level guarantee contract is refunded to a contractor of a storage area that does not satisfy the required value (for example, patent document) 1).
[0004]
[Patent Document 1]
JP-A-2002-182859 (Claim 4, FIG. 9)
[0005]
[Problems to be solved by the invention]
However, the above-described conventional technology has a problem that the maintenance fee is discounted only for storage and is not a discount system corresponding to a different system configuration for each computer user.
[0006]
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to provide a computer maintenance fee discount system that extends the discount target range to all the components of the computer system and enables different discount fees to be set for each computer user and for each reduced content. There is.
[0008]
[Means for Solving the Problems]
The computer maintenance fee discount system of the present invention includes a user computer (10 in FIG. 1), an analysis system (20 in FIG. 1) on the side of a maintenance company that performs maintenance of the user computer, a contract system (30 in FIG. 1), and maintenance. The staff terminal (40 in FIG. 1) can be connected via the Internet (50 in FIG. 1), and the analysis system is degenerated corresponding to the system configuration of the user computer, the diagnosis program for each failure content of the user computer, and the diagnosis result Information is stored in a database, and when a failure content is received from the user computer, a corresponding diagnostic program is sent to the user computer, and a degeneracy instruction that can be received when the diagnosis result is received from the user computer is sent to the user computer. A function to perform, a function to instruct maintenance personnel terminals for repairs, and a user compilation When the degenerate operation information is received from the data, it has a function of confirming it and transmitting the degenerate operation information to the contract system, and the contract system supports the maintenance fee and the degenerate contents for each user code contracted in advance. The unit discount charge per unit time and unit system configuration is stored in the database, and when the reduced operation information is received from the analysis system, the charge determined by the reduced contents is discounted from the contracted maintenance charge to the user computer. It has the function to notify.
[0009]
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
Next, embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.
[0010]
[Description of configuration]
FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of a computer maintenance fee discount system according to the present invention. A user computer 10, an analysis system 20 on a maintenance company side, a contract system 30 and a maintenance staff terminal 40 each have an Internet 50. Connected through.
[0011]
The user computer 10 is a computer system such as a server installed in the user. The user has a maintenance contract in advance with the maintenance company for the system configuration of the user computer 10. The user computer 10 has its own automatic failure detection function, and when a failure of the user computer 10 is detected, the failure content is sent to the analysis system 20 via the Internet 50.
[0012]
Further, the diagnostic program sent from the analysis system 20 is executed, and the diagnosis result is sent to the analysis system 20. Then, based on the degeneration instruction from the analysis system 20, it is possible to continue the operation by taking measures such as degeneration operation at the time of failure. Further, when the repair completion report is received from the maintenance staff terminal 40, the degenerate operation information is sent to the analysis system 20.
[0013]
When the analysis system 20 is operated by a maintenance company and receives a failure content from the user computer 10, the analysis system 20 automatically determines whether the user computer 10 can be operated in a degenerate manner and sends a diagnostic program. When the diagnosis result is received from the user computer 10, an instruction for degeneration is given to the user computer 10, and a failure repair is instructed to the maintenance staff terminal 40. In addition, when the degenerate operation information is received from the user computer 10, it is confirmed and the degenerate operation information is transmitted to the contract system 30. As shown in FIG. 2, the analysis system 20 includes a processing device 21 and a failure analysis DB 22.
[0014]
The processing device 21 is an information processing device such as a server. When a failure notification from the user computer 10 is received, the processing device 21 searches the failure analysis DB 22 and determines whether failure detailed analysis and degenerate operation are possible. As a result, if the degenerate operation is possible, a diagnostic program corresponding to the failure content is sent to the user computer 10.
[0015]
When the diagnosis result is received from the user computer 10, the degeneration information is read from the failure analysis DB 22 and an instruction for degeneration is sent to the user computer 10. Furthermore, the processing device 21 instructs the maintenance staff terminal 40 to repair the faulty part. When the repair completion report is received, the reduced operation information from the user computer 10 is confirmed and the reduced operation information is sent to the contract system 30 via the Internet 50.
[0016]
The failure analysis DB 22 is a database that stores a diagnostic program (FIG. 4) corresponding to the failure content, a system configuration for each user code (FIG. 5), and degenerate information (not shown) corresponding to the diagnosis result. FIG. 4 exemplifies that the diagnostic programs AAAA, BBBB, CCCC, and DDDD correspond to a memory error, a hard disk error, a CPU error, and a duplex error, respectively. Further, in FIG. 5, the system configuration of the user computer 10 with the user code Y1 exemplifies that there are five hard desks, a memory capacity of 512 MB, and two CPUs.
[0017]
The contract system 30 is operated by a maintenance company. When the contracted operation information is sent from the analysis system 20, the contract system 30 calculates a discount fee for the degraded operation and sends the maintenance fee discount information to the user computer 10. The contract system 30 comprises a processing device 31 and a maintenance contract DB 32 as shown in FIG.
[0018]
The processing device 31 is an information processing device such as a personal computer. When the degenerate operation information is received from the analysis system 20, the processing device 31 searches the maintenance contract DB 32 and discounts the fee determined by the degenerate contents from the contracted maintenance fee. Notify
[0019]
The maintenance contract DB 32 is a database in which a maintenance fee for each user code contracted in advance (FIG. 6) and a discount fee (FIG. 7) corresponding to the contents of degeneration are stored. FIG. 6 illustrates that the maintenance fee for the user computer 10 with the user code Y1 is xxx, and the maintenance fee for the user computer 10 with the user code Y2 is yyyy. Further, in FIG. 7, the unit discount charges for the memory, hard disk, CPU, and duplex are exemplified as aaaa, bbbb, cccc, and dddd. The unit discount fee refers to a discount fee per unit time / unit system configuration. The unit configuration refers to, for example, one hard desk, one memory board, and one CPU.
[0020]
The maintenance staff terminal 40 is a portable terminal carried by the maintenance staff of the user computer 10 belonging to the maintenance company. For the purpose of repairing the user computer 10 according to an instruction from the analysis system 20 and reporting the completion of the repair to the analysis system 20. used.
[0021]
[Description of operation]
Next, the operation of the present embodiment configured as described above will be described with reference to the flowchart shown in FIG. In the following description, it is assumed that a memory failure has occurred in the user computer 10 with the user code Y1.
[0022]
First, when a failure occurs in the user computer 10, the failure detection function provided in the user computer identifies the failure and identifies the failure location, and the failure information “memory error has occurred” is stored together with the user code Y1 registered in advance. The data is sent to the analysis system 20 via the Internet 50 (step S1 in FIG. 8). At this time, the date and time when the memory error occurred is also sent.
[0023]
In the analysis system 20, the processing device 21 searches the failure analysis DB 22 using a memory error as a key, extracts a diagnostic program AAAA corresponding to the memory error, and sends the diagnostic program AAAA to the user computer 10 via the Internet 50 (step) S2).
[0024]
The user computer 10 diagnoses the user computer 10 by the sent diagnostic program AAAA, and as a result, sends a diagnostic result “address XX to address □□ unusable” to the analysis system 20 (step S3). . The processing device 21 searches the failure analysis DB 22 again using the user code Y1 as a key, and reads the degeneration information corresponding to the diagnosis result (step S4).
[0025]
Next, the processing device 21 sends a disconnection instruction for the unusable addresses (XX to □□) from the memory capacity (512 MB) installed in the user computer 10 via the Internet 50 based on the degeneration information corresponding to the diagnosis result. It is sent to the user computer 10 (step S5). The user computer 10 continues operation by disconnecting the unusable addresses OO to □□ (step S6).
[0026]
Further, the analysis system 20 instructs the maintenance staff terminal 40 to repair the memory that has failed in the user computer 10 via the Internet 50 (step S7). The maintenance person carrying the maintenance person terminal 40 goes to the user with the user code Y1 to repair the memory of the user computer 10 (replacement of parts), completes the repair and confirms the normal operation, and then analyzes the completion report. The data is sent to the system 20 and the user computer 10 (step S8).
[0027]
Upon receiving the repair completion report, the analysis system 20 confirms normal operation (step S9), and analyzes the degenerate operation information “the user computer 10 with the user code Y1 is performing degenerate operation due to a memory error” via the Internet 50. It is sent to the system 20 (step S10). The degenerate operation information includes a degenerate time from the date and time when the degenerate operation (step S6) is started to the date and time when normal operation of the memory was confirmed (step S9). The analysis system 20 compares the time obtained from the date and time from the degeneration instruction (step S5) to the repair completion report (step S8) with the degeneration time sent from the user computer 10 and determines the degeneration time. The degenerate operation information is sent to the contract system 30 (step S11).
[0028]
In the contract system 30, after receiving the reduced operation information, the processing device 31 searches the maintenance contract DB 32 and extracts the maintenance fee xxx of the user code Y1 and the discount fee aaaa per unit time when the memory is reduced. Then, the discount fee per unit time is multiplied by the degeneration time to calculate the discount rate, and the user code Y1's user is discounted that “a1 is discounted due to degenerate operation due to memory error in the maintenance fee xxx” Charge information is sent (step S12).
[0029]
[Explanation of effects]
As described above, the present invention extends the object of maintenance fee discount at the time of reduced operation to all the components of the computer system, enables different discount fees to be set for each computer user and for each reduced content, Furthermore, since the discount proportional to the degeneration time is enabled, the user of the computer system can receive a detailed maintenance fee discount service according to the operation restriction due to the degeneration operation.
[Brief description of the drawings]
1 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of a computer maintenance fee discount system according to the present invention. FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating the configuration of an analysis system 20 in FIG. 1. FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating the configuration of a contract system 30 in FIG. FIG. 4 is a diagram illustrating a diagnostic program for each failure content stored in the failure analysis DB 22 in FIG. 2. FIG. 5 is a system configuration for each user code stored in the failure analysis DB 22 in FIG. FIG. 6 illustrates a maintenance fee for each user code stored in the maintenance contract DB in FIG. 3. FIG. 7 illustrates a discount fee for each degenerate content stored in the maintenance contract DB in FIG. FIG. 8 is a flowchart showing the operation of the embodiment shown in FIGS. 1 to 7;
DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 10 User computer 20 Analysis system 21 Processing apparatus 22 Failure analysis database 30 Contract system 31 Processing apparatus 32 Maintenance contract database 40 Maintenance staff terminal 50 Internet

Claims (2)

The user computer and the maintenance company's analysis system, contract system, and maintenance personnel terminal that performs maintenance of the user computer can be connected via the Internet.
The analysis system stores a system configuration of the user computer, a diagnostic program for each failure content of the user computer, and degeneration information corresponding to the diagnosis result in a database, and receives a failure content from the user computer. A function of sending a corresponding diagnostic program to the user computer, a function of instructing the user computer to degenerate possible when receiving a diagnosis result from the user computer, a function of instructing the maintenance staff terminal to repair the failure, and from the user computer Upon receiving the degenerate operation information, it has a function of confirming it and transmitting the degenerate operation information to the contract system,
The contract system stores a maintenance fee for each user code contracted in advance and a unit discount rate per unit time / unit system configuration corresponding to the degeneracy content in the database, and receives degenerate operation information from the analysis system. Then, a computer maintenance fee discount system having a function of discounting a fee determined by degenerate content from a contracted maintenance fee and notifying the user computer.   Confirmation of the degenerate operation information in the analysis system is included in the time obtained from the degeneration instruction to the user computer until the repair completion report by the maintenance staff terminal and the degenerate operation information sent from the user computer. 2. The computer maintenance fee discount system according to claim 1, wherein the system maintenance fee discount system is performed by comparing the degeneration time.

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