JP5228652B2 - Device information management apparatus, device method management method, and device information management program - Google Patents

Description

  The present invention relates to a device information management apparatus that collects and manages device information related to the operation status of devices represented by image processing apparatuses such as MFPs (Multi Function Printers) via a network.

  Practical use of remote management system that collects counter information such as the number of printed sheets, failure occurrence information such as failure, consumables remaining information such as toner exhaustion, etc. via a network such as the Internet for image processing devices such as MFPs (See, for example, Patent Document 1).

  In such a system, the center side is notified of counter information, failure occurrence information, and the like by a communication device separate from the image processing device or a communication function in the image processing device. The notified information is dealt with by dispatching a service person according to the importance.

JP2001-250008

  The remote management system described above is indispensable for properly managing customer equipment, and an unexpected situation is assumed when a failure occurs on the management system device (server). Measures against disabilities are an important theme.

Conventionally, as a countermeasure for this type of system failure,
(1) Prepare multiple servers with the same performance so that even if one fails, processing can continue on other servers (cluster configuration)
(2) A secondary server is located at a remote location, and operations are continued on the secondary server in the event of a failure (cold site, hot site)
In any case, the service provided by the server is taken over by another server as it is, and the business is continued.

  Therefore, the replacement server is required to have the same processing performance as normal, and when the number of devices to be managed is enormous and the normal server is quite large, An equivalent server is also required for an alternative server.

  The present invention has been proposed in view of the above-described conventional problems, and an object of the present invention is to provide a device information management apparatus capable of taking measures against a failure by a small-scale backup apparatus.

In order to solve the above-described problem, the device information management apparatus according to the first aspect of the present invention is a device information management device that processes a notification from a device management client, and accepts a notification from the device management client. and means, on the basis of the said notification severity was accepted by the accepting means and the load level of the device information management unit, a determination unit configured to determine whether the notification is to be processed, the determination means determines A processing unit that processes the notification when the notification is determined to be a processing target; and a discarding unit that discards the notification when the determination unit determines that the notification is not a processing target. The determination unit determines that the notification is a processing target when the sum of the importance and the load is equal to or greater than a predetermined threshold, When the sum of the load level is less than the threshold value and judging as not processed.

An information device management program according to the invention described in claim 6 is a device information management program executed by a device information management apparatus that processes a notification from a device management client, and accepts a notification from the device management client. wherein the receiving step, based on the load of the importance of the accepted by the accepting step the notification the device information management apparatus, a determination step of determining whether the notification is to be processed, by the determination step When the notification is determined to be a processing target, a processing step for processing the notification; and when the determination step determines that the notification is not a processing target, a disposal step for discarding the notification be executed by the information management device, wherein when the determination process is sum of the load index and the importance degree is a predetermined threshold or more, the notification Determined to be processed, the sum of said load index and the importance and judging not to be processed when less than the threshold value.

  In the device information management device of the present invention, when processing is performed by the device information management device in the event of a failure, only the notification with high importance is processed when the load of the device information management device is high, and the importance of when the load is low Since low notifications are processed, even a small-scale server can cope with a system failure appropriately as compared with a normal processing server.

  Hereinafter, preferred embodiments of the present invention will be described.

<System configuration>
FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a configuration example of a system according to an embodiment of the present invention.

  In FIG. 1, a device management client 2 for collecting device information is provided inside or outside a management target device 1 such as an MFP, and this device management client 2 is connected to a network 3 such as the Internet.

On the center side, a load balancer (load balancer) 4 receives device information collected by the device management client 2 via the network 3 and distributes it to the transaction system 5. In the transaction system 5, the device information is managed by the application server 51, and the device information collected by the transaction system 5 is utilized in the information utilization system 8 connected via the network. When a failure occurs in the transaction system 5, the load distribution device 4 transmits device information to the device information management device 6.
Further, a user terminal 9 used by a service base user is connected to the information utilization system 8 via a network.

  The transaction system 5 includes application servers 51A, 51B,..., DB (Data Base) servers 52A, 52B,..., And a storage device (disk array) 53. The device information management apparatus 6 includes an accepting unit 61, a load obtaining unit 62, a determining unit 63, a processing unit 64, a discarding unit 65, and a storage unit 66. Data stored in the storage unit 66 is transferred to the transaction system 5 at the time of recovery. A recovery processing unit 7 to be stored is connected.

  The load distribution device 4 distributes the notification received from the device management client 2 via the network 3 evenly to the application servers 51A, 51B,... For load distribution when the transaction system 5 is operating normally. It has a function of distributing to the device information management device 6 when a failure has occurred in the transaction system 5. As a sorting algorithm when the transaction system 5 is operating normally, a round robin method and a fast test (fastest) method are often used. In the round robin method, when there are application servers 51 from A to D, for example, the distribution is performed in order of A → B → C → D → A → B → C → D. In the fast test method, a plurality of application servers 51 are called and assigned to those that have been answered quickly.

As a distribution from the load balancer 4 to the device information management device 6 when a failure occurs in the transaction system 5,
(1) A method of setting in the load balancer 4 in advance so that all notifications are distributed to the device information management device 6 when the responses of all the application servers 51A, 52B,. When a failure occurs in the transaction system, two methods are conceivable in which the operator manually changes the setting of the load distribution device 4 so that all notifications are distributed to the device information management device 6. However, the method (1) has a problem that the processing is transferred to the device information management apparatus 6 even when the response of the application servers 51A, 51B,... The method (2) does not cause such a switching error, but has a problem that it takes time to switch.

  Application servers 51A, 51B,... Are functional units that execute business logic for providing services. Notifications from the device management client 2 distributed from the load balancer 4 are used. , 52B,... Are stored in the storage device 53, and the emergency notification has a function to immediately transfer the information utilization system 8. Note that the steady notification is notification that periodically notifies, for example, counter information and the like, and the emergency notification is notification that is performed every time an event occurs, such as failure occurrence information and remaining consumable information. The application servers 51A, 51B,... Are connected to a plurality of DB servers 52A, 52B,..., But for each application server, a primary server that is a DB server that tries to access first and a primary server DB servers are ranked as secondary servers that are DB servers that attempt to access when the server does not respond.

  The DB servers 52A, 52B,... Are servers on which a DBMS (Data Base Management System) operates, and are stored in the storage device 53 based on requests from the application servers 51A, 51B,. It has a function to operate the actual database. In order to prevent database contention by a plurality of DB servers 52A, 52B,..., Locking is performed in units of DBs, tables, rows, or the like. In addition, a synchronization signal may be exchanged between DB servers.

  The device information management device 6 is a functional unit that performs processing when a failure occurs in the transaction system 5. The device information management device 6 receives the notification from the device management client 2 distributed from the load distribution device 4 by the receiving means 61 and acquires the load. The load of the device information management apparatus 6 is acquired by the means 62. Next, the determination unit 63 determines the importance level predetermined according to the service type, which is the type of service indicated by the notification, such as an important failure notification, scheduled notification, and toner near-end notification, and the current load acquired by the load acquisition unit 62 Determine whether to dispose or dispose of in consideration of the situation. Notifications include regular notifications such as counter information and emergency notifications such as fault occurrence information and consumables remaining amount information, etc., which are high in importance and are temporarily stored for regular notifications, high in importance, and emergency A processing means 64 for immediately transferring the notification to the information utilization system 8 is provided. The notification of low importance received when the load of the device information management device 6 is high is discarded by the discarding unit 65 without any processing.

  The recovery processing unit 7 stores the contents of regular notifications temporarily stored in the storage unit 66 of the device information management apparatus 6 at the time of recovery from the failure of the transaction system 5 in the production DB servers 52A, 52B,. It has a function to memorize. Note that the function of the recovery time processing unit 7 may be provided inside the device information management apparatus 6, or may be provided inside the load distribution apparatus 4 and the application servers 51A, 51B,.

  On the other hand, the information utilization system 8 includes an application server 81, a DB server 82, and a storage device 83.

  The application server 81 is a functional unit that executes business logic for providing a service. The application server 81 transmits an emergency notification transferred from the transaction system 5 to the user terminal 9 and stores information stored in the database of the transaction system 5. It has a function of acquiring it in a timely manner, storing it in the storage device 83 under the management of the DB server 82, and responding to a request for information utilization from the user terminal 9.

  FIG. 2A is a diagram showing an example of a data format of notification sent from the device management client 2 to the transaction system 5. All the notification data includes a service type indicating the type of service, a client ID for identifying the client, a notification date and time indicating the date and time of notification, and a main body of data related to the service. FIG. 2B shows an example of the structure of a service type, which includes a service ID for specifying a service and a type identifier. The types are classified into regular notifications and emergency notifications. FIG. 2C shows an example of data related to a service for each service type, and the data contents differ depending on the service type. The data related to the service is CSV (Comma Separated Values) format text separated by commas for each item. Of course, other data formats can be used by defining the rules in the system.

  FIG. 3 is a diagram showing an example of the data structure on the database of the transaction system 5. The transaction system 5 holds a separate table for each notification service type. FIG. 3A shows an example of the data structure of the scheduled notification. The client ID for specifying the device management client 2, the notification date and time indicating the date and time when the notification was performed, and the date and time when the MFP counter was read out are shown. Counter information acquisition date and time, counter information for each type of counter, jam history information in order of occurrence date and time (information indicating when, where and under what circumstances the jam occurred), and fault history information in order of occurrence date and time ( Information indicating when and what the failure was). Since the MFP has various number counters such as color, black and white, paper size, paper orientation, paper tray, etc., the counter information is divided according to these items. The jam history information and the failure history information include, for example, information for the latest 10 times.

  FIG. 3B shows an example of the data structure of the billing counter notification. The client ID for specifying the device management client 2, the notification date / time indicating the date / time when the notification was performed, and the date / time when the MFP counter was read out. Counter information acquisition date and time, and charging counter information indicating the value of each counter related to charging calculation.

  FIG. 4 is a diagram illustrating a configuration example of the device information management apparatus 6.

  In FIG. 4, the device information management device 6 receives a notification (service) via the load distribution device 4 by the reception unit 61 and acquires the load of the device information management device by the load acquisition unit 62. When the degree of importance associated with each service type notified by the service type list 631 in the determination unit 63 is compared with the load degree associated with the load of the device information management apparatus 6 in the load degree list 632, and the condition is met. Distributes the notification to the processing means 64, and distributes the notification to the discarding means 65 when the conditions are not met.

  The processing unit 64 may include a steady notification processing unit 641 that processes steady notification and an emergency notification processing unit 645 that processes emergency notification. In this case, the regular notification processing unit 631 includes a regular notification analysis unit 642 that analyzes the type of regular notification, a regular notification processing unit 643 that performs processing for regular notification, and a billing counter that performs processing for billing counter notification. A notification processing unit 644 and the like are provided. The scheduled notification processing unit 643, the charging counter notification processing unit 644, and the like temporarily store the content of notification. The contents are stored in the DB servers 52A, 53B,... By the recovery processing unit 7 in the transaction system 5. Here, the database may not be used (ie, not converted into the database format), and may be stored in the storage storage means 66 in the text format. In that case, it is possible to reduce the processing load in the device information management device 6 under a system failure and to expand the range of notifications that can be processed.

  The emergency notification processing unit 645 includes an emergency notification transmission unit 646 that transmits an emergency notification to the information utilization system 8.

  FIG. 5 is a diagram showing an example of the data structure of the service type list 631 held in the determination unit 63. Here, the importance “4” is the highest importance, and the importance is set in the order of “3” “2” “1”. For example, the importance fault notification and the scheduled notification are set to the importance level “4”. The reason why the importance failure notification is increased is because it has a great influence on the business of the customer and should be dealt with urgently even under a system failure. The reason for increasing the importance of the scheduled notification is to temporarily store the contents of the scheduled notification to prevent data loss and store it in the transaction system when the system is restored. The toner near-end notification, billing counter notification, jam occurrence notification, component deterioration notification, etc. are not so urgent and can be grasped later from the scheduled notification, so the importance is set low.

  FIG. 6 is a diagram showing an example of the load level list 632 in which the load of the device information management apparatus 6 is defined as the load frequency. Here, the load degree is set to “4” when the load of the device information management apparatus 6 is the lowest 0 to 40%, “3” when the load is 40 to 60%, and then “2” and “1”.

  FIG. 7 is a diagram showing an example of a file structure of notifications temporarily stored by the device information management apparatus 6. The device information management device 6 stores each notification including the service type. At this time, it may be stored as text data in CSV format. FIG. 7A shows an example of the file structure of the scheduled notification, and shows how the notification contents are stored as they are in CSV format text without being processed. FIG. 7B shows an example of the file structure of the billing counter notification. Similarly, the notification contents are stored as they are in CSV format text without being processed.

<Operation>
FIG. 8 is a sequence diagram showing a data flow when the system is normal.

  8, when a steady notification is transmitted from the device management client 2 to the transaction system 5 via the load balancer 4 (step S11), the application servers 51A, 51B,. The contents are accumulated (step S12).

  Thereafter, when the information utilization system 8 makes a request to reference the stored information to the transaction system 5 (step S13), the transaction system 5 reads from the database (step S14) and transmits the stored information to the information utilization system 8 (step S14). Step S15).

  When an emergency notification is transmitted from the device management client 2 to the transaction system 5 via the load balancer 4 (step S16), the application servers 51A, 51B,. Transfer to the system 8 (step S17).

  FIG. 9 is a sequence diagram showing a data flow when a system failure occurs.

  In FIG. 9, when a notification from the device management client 2 is sent to the device information management device 6 via the load balancer 4 (step S21), the device information management device 6 determines the importance of the notification and the current load. The processing based on the situation is distributed (step S22). If it is to be processed, it is stored in a temporary file (step S23). If it cannot be processed, the notification is discarded. When the emergency notification is transmitted (step S24), the device information management device 6 distributes the processing based on the importance of the notification and the current load status (step S25). If the information is to be processed, the information utilization system 8 is notified (step S26). If the information cannot be processed, the notification is discarded.

  In this way, the capacity of the storage device that stores the notification can be reduced by discarding the notification of low importance in the event of a failure. Although it may be stored in the database, it is not particular about the storage format. For example, if the file is saved in a text format, a simpler mechanism can be achieved and the capacity of the HDD can be saved.

  On the other hand, when the system is restored, the transaction system 5 acquires the content of the regular notification temporarily stored in the storage means 66 of the device information management device 6 under the control of the restoration processing unit 7 and The contents are stored in the DB servers 52A, 52B,... (Step S27).

  The process distribution process based on the importance level and the load level in steps S22 and S25 in FIG. 9 will be described. When a failure occurs in the transaction system 5, the device information management device 6 calculates the importance of the notification received from the device management client 2 and the load level of the device information management device 6, and the result is a predetermined processing necessity level. If it is above, it will judge that it will process. The calculation may be, for example, the sum of the importance level of the notification and the load level of the device information management apparatus. For example, when the processing necessity level is 5, if the importance level is “3” and the load level is “4”, “3” or “2”, processing is performed. If the importance is “3” and the load is “1”, no processing is performed.

  In the above embodiment, the determination is made based on both the importance level of the notification and the load level of the device information management device. However, the determination may be made based only on the importance level of the notification, or the load on the device information management device. The determination may be made based only on the degree.

  Further, as shown in FIG. 10, the priority may be given priority. FIG. 10 is a flowchart showing an example of processing distribution based on importance and load in steps S22 and S25 of FIG. In FIG. 10, processing is started (step S101), and when a notification is received (step S102), it is determined whether or not the importance is “4” (step S103). Here, when the importance is “4” (Yes in step S103), the notification is processed (step S110), and the process is terminated (step S111).

  If the importance is not “4” (No in step S103), it is subsequently determined whether the importance is “3” (step S104). Here, when the importance is “3” (Yes in step S104), it is subsequently determined whether or not the load of the failure device management apparatus (hereinafter referred to as server load) is less than 80% (step S105). ). Here, when the server load is smaller than 80% (Yes in step S105), the notification is processed (step S110), and the process is terminated (step S111). If the server load is not smaller than 80% (No in step S105), the process is terminated without performing any particular process (step S111).

  If the importance level is not “3” (No in step S104), it is subsequently determined whether the importance level is “2” (step S106). Here, when the importance is “2” (Yes in step S106), it is subsequently determined whether or not the server load is smaller than 60% (step S107). Here, when the server load is smaller than 60% (Yes in step S107), the notification is processed (step S110), and the process is terminated (step S111). If the server load is not smaller than 60% (No in step S107), the process is terminated without performing any particular process (step S111).

  If the importance level is not “2” (No in step S106), it is subsequently determined whether the importance level is “1” (step S108). Here, when the importance is “1” (Yes in step S108), it is subsequently determined whether or not the server load is smaller than 40% (step S109). Here, when the server load is smaller than 40% (Yes in step S109), the notification is processed (step S110), and the process is terminated (step S111). If the server load is not smaller than 40% (No in step S109), the process is terminated without performing any particular process (step S111).

  If the importance level is not “1” (No in step S108), the process ends without performing any particular processing (step S111).

  If it is determined that the notification is to be processed, as shown in FIG. 11, if the notification is a steady notification, it is stored in the storage means 66, and if it is an emergency notification, it is transferred to the information utilization system 8. Further, as described above, the steady notification stored in the storage unit 66 is stored in the DB server 52 of the transaction system 5 by the recovery processing unit 7 when the transaction system 5 is recovered. The emergency notification transferred to the information utilization system 8 can be referred from the user terminal 9.

<Summary>
As described above, according to the embodiment of the present invention,
(1) The device information management device does not continue all the operations performed by the application server and DB server of the transaction system, but provides only highly important operations and low importance non-urgent transactions. Throw it away.
(2) The storage means of the device information management apparatus saves storage capacity by storing data in a file without using a database.
(3) After the recovery from the system failure, the notification stored in the storage means of the device information management apparatus is stored in the DB server of the transaction system.
As a result, the device information management apparatus can have a low function.

  The present invention has been described above by the preferred embodiments of the present invention. While the invention has been described with reference to specific embodiments, various modifications and changes may be made to the embodiments without departing from the broad spirit and scope of the invention as defined in the claims. Obviously you can. In other words, the present invention should not be construed as being limited by the details of the specific examples and the accompanying drawings.

It is a figure which shows the structural example of the system concerning one Embodiment of this invention. It is a figure which shows the example of the data format of a notification. It is a figure which shows the example of a data structure in DB server. It is a figure which shows the structural example of an apparatus information management apparatus. It is a figure which shows the data structure example of a service classification list. It is a figure which shows the structural example of a load degree list | wrist. It is a figure which shows the file structure example of the notification temporarily accumulate | stored by the memory | storage means of an apparatus information management apparatus. It is a sequence diagram which shows the data flow at the time of normal operation of a transaction system. It is a sequence diagram which shows the data flow at the time of the failure of a transaction system. It is a flowchart which shows the process example of the process distribution based on importance / load. It is a flowchart which shows the example which processes notification.

Explanation of symbols

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Management object apparatus 2 Apparatus management client 3 Network 4 Load distribution apparatus 5 Transaction system 51A, 51B Application server 52A, 52B DB server 53 Storage apparatus 6 Equipment information management apparatus 61 Acceptance means 62 Load acquisition means 63 Determination means 631 Service type list 632 Load degree list 64 Processing unit 641 Regular notification processing unit 642 Regular notification analysis unit 643 Regular notification processing unit 644 Charge counter notification processing unit 645 Emergency notification processing unit 646 Emergency notification transmission unit 65 Disposal unit 66 Storage unit 7 Recovery processing unit 8 Information Utilization system 81 Application server 82 DB server 83 Storage device 9 User terminal

Claims (5)

A device information management device that processes notifications from device management clients,
Receiving means for receiving a notification from the device management client;
A determination unit that determines whether the notification is a processing target based on the importance of the notification received by the reception unit and the load level of the device information management device;
Processing means for processing the notification when the determination means determines that the notification is a processing target;
A discarding unit that discards the notification when the determination unit determines that the notification is not a processing target;
When the sum of the importance and the load is equal to or greater than a predetermined threshold, the determination unit determines that the notification is a processing target, and the sum of the importance and the load is smaller than the threshold A device information management apparatus characterized in that it is sometimes determined that it is not a processing target. In the device information management device according to claim 1,
The processing means includes
Storage means for storing a notification content when the notification is a steady notification;
Emergency notification transmission means for transmitting the emergency notification to an information utilization system when the notification is an emergency notification;
A device information management apparatus comprising:   3. The apparatus information management apparatus according to claim 2, wherein the storage unit stores the contents of the steady notification in a text format. In the device information management apparatus according to any one of claims 1 to 3, wherein the importance, the device information management apparatus characterized by being determined based on the service type of the notification. A device information management program executed by a device information management apparatus that processes a notification from a device management client,
A reception process for receiving a notification from the device management client;
A determination step of determining whether the notification is a processing target based on the importance of the notification received by the reception step and the load level of the device information management device;
A processing step of processing the notification when the notification is determined to be a processing target by the determination step;
When the determination step determines that the notification is not a processing target, the device information management apparatus is caused to execute a disposal step for discarding the notification.
The determination step determines that the notification is a processing target when the sum of the importance and the load is equal to or greater than a predetermined threshold, and the sum of the importance and the load is smaller than the threshold A device information management program characterized in that it is sometimes determined that it is not a processing target.

Images