JP4920567B2 - Equipment network system and data access control method - Google Patents

Description

The present invention is equipment network system having a facility management apparatus for managing the operation of the equipment, and to a data access control how the equipment management device.

  Conventionally, “a data mismatch and a reference update collision are prevented when data processing is individually performed on an original and a copy in each system coupled by a communication system. As a technique for the purpose, “the update request from the application on the client 1 executed by the application execution unit 16 is temporarily stored in the client spool 13. Waiting for the connection between the client 1 and the server 2, the update request from the application is transferred and stored in the server spool 23. The server control unit 21 checks whether the update request has a collision with another reference request. When there is no collision, the data original in the original storage unit 22 and the data in the cache 12 are updated according to the request. If there is a collision, the data is not updated. Then, the presence or absence of a collision is notified to the reference requester, and the update result is notified to the update requester. Is proposed (Patent Document 1).

  In addition, as a technology aimed at “collecting data at the time of failure, analyzing the cause of failure, and recovering from failure early”, the execution time of the program and the processing completion status are checked at regular intervals, Information necessary for analyzing the cause of failure by determining that there is an error if each program has not finished within the prescribed time or if all processing has not been completed at the end of execution, and saving the contents of the main memory at that time A software fault detection method has been proposed (Patent Document 2).

JP-A-10-133828 (summary) JP-A-2-207347

On the equipment management device that manages the operation of the equipment, a plurality of control processes that request reading or writing of data stored in the storage unit may be executed asynchronously.
One of the reasons for such asynchronous data access is that processing of an application that performs a management command, a status acquisition command, or the like for the equipment is individually executed on the equipment management device.

When a plurality of control processes individually request reading or writing of data, data access may compete depending on the timing, and the accessed data may be destroyed.
However, such troubles due to data access conflicts may become apparent in a test before shipping the equipment management device, but such a problem cannot be found in the test before shipping. It may occur after starting operation at the installation site.

  In the conventional equipment management device, there is no mechanism that allows the developer to easily trace the cause of the failure caused by the data access conflict as described above, and therefore, a large amount of man-hour is required for the cause analysis when the failure occurs. There was a problem of becoming.

The present invention has been made in order to solve the above-described problems, and reduces the problems caused by data access competition, eases communication traffic, and enables stable operation and equipment network system and data access. An object is to provide a control method .

The equipment network system according to the present invention accesses equipment, a control unit that controls the operation of the equipment, a storage unit that stores data used by the control unit, and data stored in the storage unit. And a data access unit that manages a use state flag of the data, and a facility management device that includes a communication unit that transmits a management command to the facility device or receives a response thereof, and the storage unit includes the facility The device management data and an interval management table that defines the usage interval of the management data are stored, and the control unit asynchronously executes a plurality of control processes that request reading or writing of the management data stored in the storage unit. the interval management table holds the used intervals for each of the control process, the control unit, the interval management tape Is defined in Le, the use interval corresponding to a plurality of control processes to refer to the same of the management data, reference via the data access unit, calculates the greatest common divisor of the used intervals, said plurality of control The number of communication per unit time at which the process transmits the management command according to the corresponding usage interval, and the unit at which the plurality of control processes commonly transmit the management command at the usage interval with the greatest common divisor as the usage interval Compared with the number of communications per hour, the usage interval corresponding to the smaller number of communications is set as a new usage interval, and the control process is performed on the equipment via the communication unit at the new usage interval . It performs transmission of the management instructions via the data access unit in the storage unit based on the response from the equipment for the management instructions Storing the management data of the equipment, the data access unit receives a read request or write request of the management data from the control process, if the use state flag disabled state of the management data, the inaccessible fact to manage data returned to the control process, if the use state flag is usable state of the management data, accesses the management data by setting the use state flag to a disabled state, the management data When the reading or writing of the management data is completed, the use status flag of the management data is set to a usable state, and the result of the reading or writing of the management data is returned to the control process.

According to the equipment network system according to the present invention, the data access is controlled by using the use state flag so that a plurality of control processes do not read or write the same data at the same time. Can be reduced.

Embodiment 1 FIG.
FIG. 1 is a configuration diagram of a facility equipment network system according to Embodiment 1 of the present invention.
In FIG. 1, 100 is an equipment management device, 200a is an illuminator, 200b is an air conditioner, 300 is a monitoring device, and 400 is a network.
The facility management apparatus 100 manages the operations of the illuminator 200a and the air conditioner 200b. Hereinafter, the illuminator 200a and the air conditioner 200b are collectively referred to as the equipment 200.
The monitoring apparatus 300 is connected to the facility management apparatus 100 via the network 400 and requests the facility management apparatus 100 to issue a management command for the facility apparatus 200. In response to the request, the facility management device 100 issues a management command to the facility device 200 and transmits the result to the monitoring device 300.
The network 400 is a communication network such as a LAN (Local Area Network).

  The facility management apparatus 100 includes a communication unit 110, a control unit 120, a data access unit 130, and a storage unit 140.

The communication unit 110 includes an interface that can be connected to the facility device 200, and issues a management command to the facility device 200 based on an instruction from the control unit 120. The management command here is, for example, an operation instruction command or a command for acquiring a device state.
The communication unit 110 also includes an interface that can be connected to the network 300, and performs communication with the monitoring apparatus 300.
These two interfaces may be configured individually.

The control unit 120 controls the overall operation of the facility management apparatus 100, and asynchronously executes a plurality of control processes described later with reference to FIG.
The control process here is a functional element such as a program that regulates the operation of the control unit 120, and is executed under the control of the control unit 120. This control process requests the data access unit 130 to access the data stored in the storage unit 140.

The data access unit 130 receives a data read request or a data write request from a control process executed by the control unit 120 and performs access control for each predetermined data granularity (data management unit) so that access conflict does not occur. While managing, the data stored in the storage unit 140 is accessed. Details of the access control will be described with reference to FIGS.
The result of the data access unit 130 reading or writing the data stored in the storage unit 140 is returned to the control process that issued the data read request or data write request.

The storage unit 140 stores management data that is read or written by the control process executed by the control unit 120 via the data access unit 130. The management data here is data representing the operating state of the equipment device 200.
For example, the current set temperature of the air conditioner 200b is stored in the storage unit 140, and the control process can acquire the set temperature of the air conditioner 200b by reading this value.
When the control process changes the set temperature of the air conditioner 200b, the control process issues a management instruction to change the set temperature via the communication unit 110, receives the result, and updates the set temperature value Is written in the storage unit 140.

The control unit 120 and the data access unit 130 can be realized by hardware such as a circuit device that realizes these functions, or by an arithmetic device such as a CPU or a microcomputer and a control program that defines its operation. You can also
When configured by hardware, the control process described above refers to a control operation realized by a function of hardware. When implemented by an arithmetic device and software, the control process described above refers to a control operation of a control program executed on the arithmetic device.
The control unit 120 and the data access unit 130 may be configured separately as illustrated in FIG. 1 or may be configured integrally.

In the configuration illustrated in FIG. 1, the communication unit 110 and the facility device 200 are directly connected. However, if the facility device 200 includes an interface with the network 400, the facility management apparatus 100 and the facility device are connected via the network 400. The device 200 may be connected.
Which configuration is adopted is appropriately determined according to the interface specifications of each device.

Heretofore, the general operations relating to each device configuring the equipment device network of FIG.
Next, data access control of a control process executed on the facility management apparatus 100 will be described.

FIG. 2 illustrates an example in which a failure occurs in data stored in the storage unit 140 due to a data access conflict. Here, it is assumed that the control unit 120 asynchronously executes the two control processes 120A and 120B in parallel.
The control process 120A intends to add 30 to the value of certain management data stored in the storage unit 140 and update it.
The control process 120B is going to update by subtracting 60 from the same management data value that the control process 120A is trying to update.
Hereinafter, processing steps of each control process shown in FIG. 2 will be described.

(0) The management data stored in the storage unit 140 is set to “100” as an initial value.
(1) The control process 120A acquires the initial value “100” of the management data.
(2) The control process 120B acquires the initial value “100” of the management data.
(3) The control process 120A adds 30 to the acquired management data value.
(4) The control process 120B subtracts 60 from the acquired management data value.

(5) The control process 120 </ b> A writes the added value “130” in the storage unit 140.
(6) The storage unit 140 stores the added value “130”.
(7) The control process 120B writes the value “40” after subtraction into the storage unit 140.
(8) The subtraction value “40” is stored in the storage unit 140.

Originally, when 30 is added to the initial value “100” and 60 is subtracted, the final value stored in the storage unit 140 should be “70”, but the control processes 120A and 120B are respectively If the value is updated independently, inconsistency occurs as shown in FIG.
In particular, in the facility management apparatus 100, the management data reference cycle and update cycle may be different for each management target device, and asynchronous updating as shown in FIG. 2 is likely to occur for the same management data.
Therefore, in the facility management apparatus 100 according to the first embodiment, the data access unit 130 collectively manages access to the management data that is read or written by the control process, and inconsistency due to access contention as shown in FIG. Make sure that does not occur.

As described above, the malfunction caused by the data access conflict in the facility management apparatus 100 has been described with reference to FIG.
Next, a specific data access control method of the data access unit 130 will be described.

FIG. 3 is a processing flow when the control process 120 </ b> A accesses management data stored in the storage unit 140.
The data access unit 130 stores and manages a use state flag described in FIG. 3 in the storage unit 140 or a memory (not shown), and performs access control using the flag.
Hereinafter, each step will be described.

(S300)
The control unit 120 activates the control process 120A. Hereinafter, the control process 120A is executed under the control of the control unit 120. The control process 120 </ b> A accesses management data stored in the storage unit 140.
In the subsequent steps, the processing executed by the control process 120A is actually executed by the control unit 120.
(S301)
The control process 120A issues an access request for management data to the data access unit 130. The access request here may be a read request or a write request.

(S302)
The data access unit 130 attempts to acquire the access right for the use state flag of the management data that has received the access request. The use state flag is set for each management data.
This step is a procedure for preventing an access conflict of the usage status flag itself, and prevents an access conflict of the usage status flag by a function such as a semaphore included in the OS (Operating System) of the facility management apparatus 100, for example. The reason for performing the access control using the semaphore function and the use state flag will be described later with reference to FIG.

(S303)
If the access right to the use state flag can be acquired, the process proceeds to step S304. If the access right cannot be acquired, the process proceeds to step S305.
(S304)
The data access unit 130 reads the value of the use status flag of the management data.
(S305)
If the access right to the usage status flag cannot be obtained, it means that another control process is accessing the usage status flag of the management data, and therefore it is considered that the management data itself cannot be accessed. The data access unit 130 returns this fact to the control process 120A and ends the process.

(S306)
The data access unit 130 determines whether or not the value of the use state flag acquired in step S304 is negative. If negative, the process proceeds to step S307, and if not negative, the process proceeds to step S310.
The usage status flag is set to a negative value when the management data is available, and an ID (positive value) of the control process being used when the management data is unavailable. To do.
In other words, when the use state flag is a positive value, it is possible to know which application is currently using the management data by the value of the use state flag (= ID of the control process).

(S307)
When the value of the use state flag is negative, it is understood that the control data is not used by another control process and the control process 120A can be used.
In order to allow another control process to detect that the control process 120A is accessing the management data, the data access unit 130 uses the ID (of the control process 120A as the value of the use state flag of the management data). Set a positive value.
In this way, when another control process tries to access the management data while the control process 120A is using the management data, the management data is obtained from the ID set in the use state flag. Can be detected as “in use by the control process 120A”.

(S308)
The data access unit 130 returns the access right to the use state flag.
Since access to the use state flag needs to be immediately released to another control process so that the use state of the management data can be confirmed from the other control process, this step is executed immediately following step S307. The
(S309)
The control process 120A obtains an access right to the management data. Thereafter, the data access unit 130 accesses the management data and returns the result to the control process 120A.
Management data can be read and written by the data access unit 130 or directly by the control process 120A.

(S310)
The data access unit 130 compares the value of the use state flag acquired in step S304 with the ID of the control process 120A.
If the two match, it can be seen that the control process 120A itself is using the management data, so the process proceeds to step S308, and the management data can be used as it is. If not, the process proceeds to step S311.

(S311)
The data access unit 130 immediately returns the access right to the use state flag.
Similar to step S308, access to the usage status flag needs to be immediately released to another control process.
(S312)
When the value of the usage status flag does not match the ID of the control process 120A, the management data is being used by the control process having the ID indicated by the current usage status flag value. Then, the management process 120A is returned to the effect that the management data cannot be accessed, and the process is terminated.

  FIG. 4 is a processing flow when the control process 120A attempts to end access to the management data stored in the storage unit 140 after the access to the management data is permitted in the processing flow of FIG. . Hereinafter, each step will be described.

(S400)
The control process 120A starts this processing flow when it finishes reading or writing management data.
(S401)
The control process 120A requests the data access unit 130 to release the access right to the management data.
(S402)
The data access unit 130 tries to acquire the access right to the use state flag of the management data.
Similar to step S302, this step is a procedure for preventing access contention of the usage status flag itself. For example, the access status flag may be prevented from being accessed by a function such as a semaphore included in the OS.

(S403)
If the access right to the use state flag can be acquired, the process proceeds to step S404. If the access right cannot be acquired, the process proceeds to step S405.
(S404)
The data access unit 130 reads the value of the use status flag of the management data.
(S405)
When the access right to the usage status flag cannot be obtained, the other control processes are accessing the usage status flag to check whether the management data can be accessed. It is considered to be impossible.
The data access unit 130 returns to the control process 120A that access right release has failed (access to the use state flag has failed), and ends the process.

(S406)
The data access unit 130 compares the value of the use state flag acquired in step S404 with the ID of the control process 120A.
If they match, the process proceeds to step S407, where the access right is released. If not, the process proceeds to step S410.
(S407)
The data access unit 130 sets the use state flag to a negative value indicating an unused state so that it can respond to an access request for the management data from another control process.

(S408)
The data access unit 130 returns the access right to the use state flag.
In this way, the data access unit 130 can respond to access requests from other control processes for the management data.
(S409)
When the value of the use state flag matches the ID of the control process 120A, it can be seen that the control process 120A itself is using the management data, so that the access right release is recognized and the success of the access right release is controlled. Returned to process 120A.

(S410)
The data access unit 130 immediately returns the access right to the use state flag.
Similar to steps S308 and S408, access to the usage status flag needs to be immediately released to another control process.
(S411)
When the ID of the control process 120A does not match the value of the usage status flag, the control process 120A does not use the management data, and thus release of the access right is not permitted.
The data access unit 130 returns an access right release failure (ID mismatch) to the control process 120A and ends the process.

In the foregoing, the procedure in which the data access unit 130 performs data access control on management data using the use state flag has been described.
Next, the semaphore function used in the description of FIGS. 3 to 4 and the access control through the use state flag rather than the direct access control to the management data will be supplementarily described below.

FIG. 5 illustrates the functions of the semaphore provided in the facility management apparatus 100.
In the first embodiment, access control of the use state flag is performed using a function such as a semaphore provided in the OS of the facility management apparatus 100. The access control of the use state flag may be performed using a function other than the semaphore. Here, a semaphore is taken as an example and its function is explained.
In FIG. 5, control processes 120A and 120B exist as in FIG. 2, and access right acquisition to the use state flag managed by the semaphore is attempted in S302 of FIG. 3, S402 of FIG. Assume. Hereinafter, each step of FIG. 5 will be described.

(0) The semaphore plays a role like a counting box that manages the assignable number. Here, the control processes 120A and 120B manage the number of usage status flags that are about to acquire the access right.
In the initial state, since no control process has acquired the access right of the use state flag, the initial value of the semaphore is “1”.

(1) The control process 120A tries to acquire the access right of the use state flag. That is notified to the semaphore.
(2) The control process 120A acquires the access right of the use state flag.
(3) Since the control process 120A acquires the access right of the use state flag, there is no access right that can be assigned, so the value of the semaphore is updated to “0”.

(4) The control process 120B tries to acquire the access right of the use state flag. That is notified to the semaphore.
(5) Since the value of the semaphore is “0”, it can be seen that the use state flag cannot be accessed. The fact that the use state flag cannot be accessed is returned to the control process 120B. This step corresponds to S305 in FIG. 3 or S405 in FIG.
(6) The control process 120B enters a standby state until the control process 120A releases the access right of the use state flag. However, since the access right of the use state flag is released immediately, the waiting time is short.

(7) The control process 120A releases the access right of the use state flag.
(8) Since the control process 120A releases the access right, the access right of the use state flag can be assigned, so the value of the semaphore is updated to “1”.
(9) The control process 120B can acquire the access right of the use state flag.

The function of the semaphore has been described above.
In general, a semaphore is often used for exclusive control of processing performed at the OS level or a hierarchy close thereto, such as exclusive access control of the storage unit 140 at the moment of data read / write access.
Therefore, it can be said that exclusive control using a semaphore is relatively suitable for instantaneous access control.

On the other hand, in the data access control of the facility management apparatus 100, there is a case where it is desired to perform exclusive control, for example, at the application level higher than the OS level.
Application-level exclusive control here refers to a case where data used by an application is exclusively used from the start to the end of the application or during a specific processing section in an application. To eliminate access to that data from other applications.
For example, when a certain monitoring application is activated, it can be considered that updating of the same data by another application is prohibited.

When such application-level access control is performed, it is preferable that the mechanism serving as a reference for the exclusive control is also the application level.
Therefore, the facility management apparatus 100 according to the first embodiment performs data access control using an application level flag that is a use state flag.
However, since access control of the use state flag itself is also necessary, for example, an OS level semaphore is used for the access control.

  It should be noted that in the above description, “application” and “control process” are generally used synonymously.

  In the above description, the case of handling both in the same manner without any distinction between reading and writing of data has been described as an example of access to data. However, for example, only when writing occurs, as in the example described in the first embodiment. It is also possible to manage conflicts so that multiple applications can be executed simultaneously when reading only.

Further, although control of contention for access to data has been described so far, this may be replaced with control contention by an application.
For example, there may be a case where it is desired to stop a certain device for energy saving control of the air conditioner 200b but to operate for comfort control. The present invention is also applicable to conflict management in such a case.

As described above, in the first embodiment, when each control process starts and ends access to data, the procedure shown in FIGS. 3 to 4 is followed to easily detect a data access conflict. Is possible.
This facilitates the extraction of problems caused by data access contention during software execution, reduces the man-hours for failure analysis, and enhances failure response capability.

In the first embodiment, not only management using OS resources for data access right management, but also an access right from an application for certain data by having an application level management unit called a usage state flag. Can be acquired not only for OS-level primitives such as the moment of reading and the moment of writing, but also in the time interval necessary for performing certain processing such as “while implementing an application function” It becomes.
This increases the degree of freedom of conflict management, such as enabling conflict management on a functional unit basis, and broadens the applicable range, making it easier to identify problems during software execution and helping to strengthen defect response capabilities. .

Embodiment 2. FIG.
In the first embodiment, the configuration and the operation example for performing data access control using the use state flag have been described.
In the second embodiment of the present invention, a configuration and an operation example will be described for generating a data access status log when a data access conflict occurs by a plurality of control processes, which is useful for later failure analysis.

FIG. 6 is a functional block diagram of the facility management apparatus 100 according to the second embodiment.
The facility management apparatus 100 according to the second embodiment includes a new log generation unit 150 in addition to the configuration described in FIG. 1 of the first embodiment. Since other configurations are the same as those of the first embodiment, description thereof is omitted.

In the second embodiment, when a data access conflict occurs, the data access unit 130 notifies the log generation unit 150 of the access status at that time.
In response to the notification, the log generation unit 150 generates a log according to a predetermined format. The generated log may be stored in the storage unit 140 or may be held in a memory (not shown).

The log generation unit 150 can be realized by hardware such as a circuit device that realizes the function, or can be realized by an arithmetic device such as a CPU or a microcomputer and a control program that defines its operation.
Further, it can be configured integrally with the control unit 120 and the data access unit 130.

The log generation unit 150 holds, for example, the following contents (1) to (3) as default contents. The storage destination may be stored in the storage unit 140 or may be stored in a memory (not shown). Alternatively, the log generation unit 150 may be incorporated on a circuit device or software.
(1) Competition conditions for data access, that is, conditions for determining whether or not to generate a log (2) Contents recorded in a log (3) Log recording format

Moreover, you may enable it for a user to set these contents from the exterior of the equipment management apparatus 100. FIG.
At the time of setting, for example, an appropriate option is displayed on the display screen of the monitoring device 300 via the communication unit 110 and presented to the user as an operation setting item of the equipment management device 100. The user may be prompted to set these contents by setting work.
Further, when the facility management apparatus 100 is developed, the developer may describe these contents in a program. The user may be able to freely set by a method other than these.

Furthermore, when the user sets these contents, for example, the control part 120 acquires the setting contents via the communication unit 110, and the control part 120 stores the setting contents as log definition data in the storage unit 140 or illustrated in FIG. Do not store in memory.
The log generation unit 150 refers to the log definition data, acquires log generation conditions and format (record contents and recording format in the log), and generates an access status log according to the acquired condition.

The function of the log generation unit 150 has been described above.
Next, an operation performed by the log generation unit 150 when a data access conflict occurs will be described.

  The log generation by the log generation unit 150 may be performed when data access by the control process competes, that is, when access to the management data is impossible as in steps S305 and S312 of FIG.

For example, in the case where the access right for the use state flag could not be acquired in step S303 in FIG. 3, if information such as the following (1) to (3) is generated as a log, a later problem Useful for analysis.
(1) Access competition to the use state flag has occurred (2) ID for identifying the management data
(3) ID of the control process that tried to access the management data

Further, when the value of the use state flag is an ID of another control process, that is, when the management data is used by another control process, the following (1) to (3) If information is generated as a log, it will be useful for later analysis of defects.
(1) Data access conflict occurrence (2) ID for identifying the management data
(3) The ID of the control process that attempted to access the management data, and the ID of the control process that is using the management data (= value of use state flag)

Further, the log generation can be performed in the same manner in the processing flow when the access to the management data is to be terminated as described with reference to FIG.
However, the concept of log generation in this case is not to compete for data access but to leave a record of access right release failure.
Of course, the same applies to the case of the start of data access and the case of the end of data access, but a log may be generated in the case of successful processing or in both cases of success and failure.

In the above description, in addition to the data access control based on the use state flag described in the first embodiment, it has been described that the log generation unit 150 generates an access status log, which is useful for failure analysis. Even when only log generation is performed without performing control, a certain effect can be exhibited.
In this case, access conflict detection may be performed with the configuration and procedure described in the first embodiment, for example, and output of the contention may be output without performing access control.
In particular, when the cause of the failure has not been elucidated, only the log generation is performed as described above, and the access contention described in the first embodiment is performed when the cause is elucidated to some extent by the analysis of the log. Can also be avoided.

  As described above, according to the second embodiment, it is easy to log the data access requests and control request contention states from a plurality of software modules during actual operation at the site where the facility management apparatus 100 is installed. Therefore, it is easy to extract problems caused by access competition, reduce the man-hours for failure analysis, and strengthen the failure response capability.

Embodiment 3 FIG.
FIG. 7 is a functional block diagram of the facility management apparatus 100 according to Embodiment 3 of the present invention.
The facility management apparatus 100 according to the third embodiment is newly provided with a log display unit 160 in addition to the configuration described in FIG. 6 of the second embodiment. Other configurations are the same as those in FIG.

The log display unit 160 includes a screen display device such as a liquid crystal display. The log display unit 160 uses the log information generated by the log generation unit 150 to display, for example, information such as conflicting data and IDs of competing control processes. To do.
Log acquisition may be performed by the log display unit 160 itself, or the log display unit 160 may perform only screen display, and the operation instruction of the log display unit 160 may be performed by the control unit 120 or the log generation unit 150. Good.
By providing the log display unit 160, it is possible to easily check the occurrence status of the problem by screen display.

Embodiment 4 FIG.
FIG. 8 is a functional block diagram of the facility management apparatus 100 according to Embodiment 4 of the present invention.
The facility management apparatus 100 according to the fourth embodiment is newly provided with a log information notification unit 170 in addition to the configuration described in FIG. 6 of the second embodiment. Other configurations are the same as those in FIG.

  The log information notifying unit 170 uses the information of the log generated by the log generating unit 150 to notify, for example, information on the data in which conflict has occurred to the competing control process being executed under the control of the control unit 120. .

The log information notification unit 170 can be realized by hardware such as a circuit device that realizes the function, or can be realized by an arithmetic device such as a CPU or a microcomputer and a control program that defines its operation.
Further, the control unit 120, the data access unit 130, or the log generation unit 150 can be configured integrally.

  By providing the log information notifying unit 170, it is possible to directly notify each control process of the occurrence of the problem, so that each control process that has received the notification takes appropriate measures such as trying to access data again after waiting for a certain period of time. be able to.

  In addition to the method of notifying log information generated by the log generation unit 150 from the log information notification unit 170 to the control unit 120 as shown in FIG. 8, the data access unit 130 directly competes without using log information. A configuration (not shown) that notifies the corresponding control process of the competition status based on the information may be used.

  The “competition status notification unit” in the fourth embodiment corresponds to the log information notification unit 170.

Embodiment 5 FIG.
FIG. 9 is a functional block diagram of the facility management apparatus 100 according to Embodiment 5 of the present invention.
The facility management apparatus 100 according to the fifth embodiment includes a log output unit 180 in addition to the configuration described in FIG. 6 of the second embodiment. Other configurations are the same as those in FIG.

The log output unit 180 outputs the log information generated by the log generation unit 150 to the outside of the facility management apparatus 100.
As an output method, for example, a method of copying log data to an external memory device, a method of outputting log data by communication via a serial cable, a LAN, or the like can be used.
The output log data format is raw log data as it is described in XML or other data structure, changed to a specific format by an external instruction, or selected by an external instruction. , Etc.
By outputting the log data to the outside of the facility management apparatus 100, the log data can be analyzed outside the facility management apparatus 100.

The log output unit 180 can be realized by hardware such as a circuit device that realizes the function, or can be realized by an arithmetic device such as a CPU or a microcomputer and a control program that defines its operation.
Further, the control unit 120, the data access unit 130, or the log generation unit 150 can be configured integrally.
The interface for log output is appropriately determined according to the output method and log data format.

Embodiment 6 FIG.
FIG. 10 is a functional block diagram of the facility management apparatus 500 according to Embodiment 6 of the present invention.
In FIG. 10, the functions and roles of the communication unit 510, the control unit 520, the data access unit 530, and the storage unit 540 are substantially the same as the components having the same names described in FIG. In form 6, only the differences will be described.

The storage unit 540 stores a use interval management table 541 described later with reference to FIG.
The control process executed by the control unit 520 refers to the use interval management table 541, acquires the use interval of each management data defined in the table, and stores each use data stored in the storage unit 540 at the use interval. View or update management data. Details of the use interval will be described later.
The control process accesses each management data through the data access unit 530 as in the first embodiment.

Data stored in the use interval management table 541 may be set by the user from outside the facility management apparatus 500.
When setting, for example, an appropriate option is displayed on the display screen of the monitoring device 300 via the communication unit 510 and presented to the user as an operation setting item of the equipment management device 500, or the input of the setting value is displayed on the user screen. The user may be prompted to set these contents by setting work.

FIG. 11 shows a configuration and data example of the use interval management table 541.
The use interval management table 541 has a “data identification ID” column, a “control process ID” column, and a “use interval” column.
In the “data identification ID” column, an ID for uniquely identifying each management data stored in the storage unit 540 is stored.
The “control process ID” column stores the identification ID of the control process that uses the management data specified by the value of the “data identification ID” column.
In the “usage interval” column, the time interval at which the control process identified by the value of the “control process ID” column refers to or updates the management data identified by the value of the “data identification ID” column is a numerical value. Stored.
In the data example of FIG. 11, the following can be understood by referring to the data in the first and second rows.

(1) Since it is defined that the control process 520A uses the set temperature of the air conditioner 200b every 10 minutes, the control unit 520 sends the set temperature of the air conditioner 200b to the communication unit 510 every 10 minutes. Issue a management order to the effect that it should be acquired.

In addition, the following examples can be considered as timing when management data should be provided.
(1.1) When the control process 520A requests the management data, the latest management data updated within 10 minutes before that time is provided.
(1.2) The latest management data is acquired every 10 minutes, and a notification to that effect is output to the control process.

(2) Similarly, the control process 520B uses the set temperature of the air conditioner 200b every 15 minutes, so the control unit 520 sends the management data to the communication unit 510 every 15 minutes so that the management data is updated every 15 minutes. Then, a management instruction is issued to the effect that the set temperature of the air conditioner 200b should be acquired.

  When the control unit 520 acquires the set temperature of the air conditioner 200b based on the value in each “use interval” column, the control unit 520 updates the value of the corresponding management data stored in the storage unit 540.

  In addition, not only the management data update cycle but also the usage interval management table 541 for the usage intervals of various data such as a time interval for regularly issuing a predetermined management command to each equipment device 200 connected to the network 400. Can be defined using

In the foregoing, the basic matters have been described regarding the definition of the use interval of each management data using the use interval management table 541 and the operation of the control unit 520.
Next, an operation for reducing communication traffic by further optimizing the use interval of each management data under the above principle will be described.

As described in FIG. 11, the communication unit 510 issues a management command for updating data every 10 minutes and 15 minutes for the same management data in principle. It is complicated to individually update the same management data for each control process.
Therefore, the control unit 520 determines which use interval is most efficient when the management data is used, and performs optimization so that each management data is read or written with the cycle.

The optimization referred to here is, for example, obtaining a use interval that minimizes the number of communication between the communication unit 510 and each facility device 200 from the viewpoint of reducing communication traffic of the communication unit 510.
For example, an optimization process can be considered in which the management data is updated at intervals of 5 minutes taking the greatest common divisor of 10 minutes and 15 minutes, and the update cycle of each control process is made common.
Hereinafter, an example of the optimization method will be described in the following steps (1) to (3) using the data example of FIG.

(1) It is assumed that the update every 10 minutes for use by the control process 520A and the update every 15 minutes for use by the control process 520B are executed separately.
In this case, the number of updates performed in one hour is as follows.
(1.1) Update for control process 520A: 60 minutes / 10 minutes = 6 times (1.2) Update for control process 520B: 60 minutes / 15 minutes = 4 times (1.3) Total number of updates : 6 times + 4 times = 10 times

(2) On the other hand, it is assumed that the greatest common divisor of the update intervals of the control processes 520A and 520B is taken and updates are performed at intervals of 5 minutes.
In this case, the number of updates performed in one hour is as follows.
(2.1) Common update of control processes 520A and 520B: 60 minutes / 5 minutes = 12 times

(3) The control unit 520 performs the calculations (1) to (2) above, and determines which update interval is used to reduce the number of updates. In this case, it can be seen that it is better to perform the update for each of the control processes 520A and 520B individually.
Therefore, the control unit 520 issues a management command for updating the set temperature of the air conditioner 200b using the value in the “use interval” column of the use interval management table 541 as it is.

  On the other hand, when the control process 520A is updated every 5 minutes and the control process 520B is updated every 10 minutes, it is as follows.

(1) It is assumed that the update every 5 minutes for use by the control process 520A and the update every 10 minutes for use by the control process 520B are executed separately.
In this case, the number of updates performed in one hour is as follows.
(1.1) Update for control process 520A: 60 minutes / 5 minutes = 12 times (1.2) Update for control process 520B: 60 minutes / 10 minutes = 6 times (1.3) Total number of updates : 12 times + 6 times = 18 times

(2) On the other hand, it is assumed that the greatest common divisor of the update intervals of the control processes 520A and 520B is taken and updates are performed at intervals of 5 minutes.
In this case, the number of updates performed in one hour is as follows.
(2.1) Common update of control processes 520A and 520B: 60 minutes / 5 minutes = 12 times

(3) In this case, it is understood that the total number of updates is smaller when the control processes 520A and 520B are updated in common.

  In the above description, it is assumed that the communication data amount required for each management command and its response is the same in the control processes 520A and 520B. The update cycle that reduces the total amount of communication data may be selected by multiplying the amount.

  In the sixth embodiment, optimization of the management data update cycle using the use interval table 541 has been described under the same configuration as in the first embodiment. However, the same configuration as in the second to fifth embodiments is used. Similarly, the management data update cycle may be optimized.

As described above, in the sixth embodiment, the control unit 520 optimizes the use interval of each management data stored in the use interval table 541.
Thereby, the communication traffic between the facility management device 500 and each facility device 200 can be reduced, and the facility management device 500 capable of stable operation can be obtained.

1 is a configuration diagram of a facility equipment network system according to Embodiment 1. FIG. An example will be described in which a failure occurs in data stored in the storage unit 140 due to a data access conflict. It is a processing flow when the control process 120A accesses the management data stored in the storage unit 140. This is a processing flow when the control process 120A attempts to end access to management data stored in the storage unit 140. The function of the semaphore provided in the facility management apparatus 100 will be described. It is a functional block diagram of the equipment management device 100 according to the second embodiment. It is a functional block diagram of the equipment management device 100 according to the third embodiment. It is a functional block diagram of the equipment management apparatus 100 which concerns on Embodiment 4. FIG. 10 is a functional block diagram of a facility management apparatus 100 according to a fifth embodiment. It is a functional block diagram of the equipment management apparatus 500 which concerns on Embodiment 6. FIG. It is a structure and data example of the use interval management table 541.

Explanation of symbols

  DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 100 Equipment management apparatus, 110 Communication part, 120 Control part, 130 Data access part, 140 Storage part, 150 Log generation part, 160 Log display part, 170 Log information notification part, 180 Log output part, 200a Illuminator, 200b Air conditioner , 300 monitoring device, 400 network, 500 facility management device, 510 communication unit, 520 control unit, 530 data access unit, 540 storage unit, 541 use interval table.

Claims (18)

Equipment and equipment
A control unit for controlling the operation of the equipment, a storage unit for storing data used by the control unit, a data access unit for accessing data stored in the storage unit and managing a use state flag of the data; And the equipment management device which has a communication part which performs transmission of the management command to the equipment, or reception of the response,
With
The storage unit stores a management data of the equipment and an interval management table defining a use interval of the management data,
The controller is
Asynchronously executing a plurality of control processes that request reading or writing of management data stored in the storage unit,
The interval management table holds the use interval for each control process,
The controller is
The use interval corresponding to a plurality of control processes defined in the interval management table and referring to the same management data is referred to via the data access unit ,
Calculate the greatest common divisor of the usage interval,
The number of communications per unit time for transmitting the management command according to the use interval corresponding to the plurality of control processes, and the control command shared by the plurality of control processes using the greatest common divisor as the use interval. Is compared with the number of communications per unit time to transmit a new usage interval corresponding to the smaller number of communications,
The control process is
It performs transmission of the management command for the facility device via the communication unit in the new use intervals,
Based on the response from the equipment to the management instruction, the management data of the equipment is stored in the storage unit via the data access unit ,
The data access unit
Receiving a read request or a write request for the management data from the control process;
If the usage status flag of the management data is unavailable,
Return to the control process that the management data cannot be accessed,
If the usage status flag of the management data is available,
Set the use status flag to the disabled state, access the management data, and when the management data is read or written, set the use status flag for the management data to the enabled state and read the management data. Alternatively, a facility equipment network system that returns the result of writing to the control process. The data access unit
When setting the use state flag to the unusable state,
The equipment network system according to claim 1, wherein an identification ID of the control process that is a return destination of a result of reading or writing the data is set as a value of the use state flag. The data access unit
When there are simultaneous access requests from a plurality of control processes to the use state flag,
Only one control process is allowed access to its usage flag,
The equipment network system according to claim 1 or 2, wherein another control process is made to wait until the previous control process ends access to the use state flag. The facility management apparatus includes a log generation unit that generates an access status log for data stored in the storage unit,
The log generation unit
When a read or write request from the control process for data stored in the storage unit competes,
The facility equipment network system according to any one of claims 1 to 3 , wherein an access situation log representing the competition situation is generated. The controller is
Accepting the specification of the generation condition or format of the access status log generated by the log generation unit,
Log definition data defining the generation conditions or format is stored in the storage unit;
The log generation unit
When generating the access status log,
The equipment network system according to claim 4 , wherein the access status log is generated based on the generation condition or format with reference to the log definition data. The facility management apparatus includes a display unit that performs screen display.
The controller is
Obtaining the access status log generated by the log generation unit;
The equipment network system according to claim 4 or 5 , wherein the contents are displayed on the screen of the display unit. The facility management apparatus includes a contention status notification unit that notifies the control process executed by the control unit that a read or write request for data stored in the storage unit has competed,
The competition status notification unit
Obtaining the access status log generated by the log generation unit;
The equipment network system according to claim 4 or 5 , wherein the notification is performed based on the access status log. The equipment management apparatus, equipment according to claim 4 or claim 5, characterized in that with a log output unit which outputs the access status log said log generating unit has generated to the outside of the facility management apparatus Network system. The data access unit
When the data read request or write request received from the control process conflicts,
The equipment network system according to any one of claims 1 to 3 , wherein the contention status is notified to the control process of the request source. A method for controlling data access of a facility management apparatus that manages the operation of facility equipment,
Asynchronously executing a plurality of control processes for requesting reading or writing to management data of the equipment stored in the storage unit provided in the equipment management device;
And data access step of managing the use status flag of the management data together with access to the management data which the storage unit stores,
Stored in the storage unit, from said interval management table that defines the use interval of the management data for each of the management data and the control process of the equipment, said corresponding to a plurality of control processes to refer to the same of the management data Refers to the use interval, refers to the greatest common divisor of the use interval, the number of communications per unit time at which the plurality of control processes transmit management commands to the equipment according to the corresponding use interval, and the greatest promise The plurality of control processes commonly using the number as a use interval is compared with the number of communication per unit time in which the management command is transmitted according to the use interval, and the use interval corresponding to the smaller number of communication is newly used. An interval acquisition step as an interval;
A communication step of transmitting a management command for the equipment at the new use interval;
Storing management data of the equipment in the storage unit based on a response from the equipment to the management command;
Have
The data access step further includes
Receiving a read request or a write request for the management data from the control process;
Determining a state of a use state flag of the management data;
Have
In the data access step,
If the usage status flag of the management data is unavailable,
Return to the control process that the management data cannot be accessed,
If the usage status flag of the management data is available,
Set the use status flag to the disabled state, access the management data, and when the management data is read or written, set the use status flag for the management data to the enabled state and read the management data. Alternatively, a data access control method characterized by returning a write result to the control process. In the data access step,
When setting the use state flag to the unusable state,
11. The data access control method according to claim 10 , wherein an identification ID of the control process that is a return destination of a result of reading or writing the data is set as a value of the use state flag. When there are simultaneous access requests from a plurality of control processes to the use state flag,
In the data access step,
Only one control process is allowed access to its usage flag,
The data access control method according to claim 10 or 11 , wherein another control process is made to wait until the previous control process ends access to the use state flag. A log generation step of generating an access status log for data stored in the storage unit;
In the log generation step,
When a read or write request from the control process for data stored in the storage unit competes,
The data access control method according to any one of claims 10 to 12 , wherein an access status log representing the contention status is generated. Receiving a generation condition or format specification of the access status log generated in the log generation step, and storing the log definition data defining the generation condition or format in the storage unit,
In the log generation step,
When generating the access status log,
The data access control method according to claim 13 , wherein in the storing step, the access status log is generated based on the generation condition or format with reference to the log definition data stored in the storage unit. Obtain the access status log generated in the log generation step,
The data access control method according to claim 13 or 14 , further comprising a display step that is provided in the facility management apparatus and causes a display unit that displays a screen to display the contents of the access status log on a screen. A contention status notification step of notifying the control process that a read or write request for data stored in the storage unit has competed;
In the competition status notification step,
Obtain the access status log generated in the log generation step,
The data access control method according to claim 13 or 14 , wherein the notification is performed based on the access status log. Data access control method according to claim 13 or claim 14, characterized by the step of outputting the access status log generated by the log generation step to the outside of the facility management apparatus. In the data access step,
When the data read request or write request received from the control process conflicts,
The data access control method according to any one of claims 10 to 12 , wherein the contention status is notified to the control process of the request source.

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