JPH03105429A - Fault restoration system - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To improve processing efficiency after a fault is restored by setting a computer to be in a waiting state when the fault occurs in an external device, receiving information on fault restoration and setting up information required for the external device from the computer after restoration. CONSTITUTION:When the fault occurs in PBX 61, the occurrence of the fault is informed to the computer 62, and an application program 63 receiving information on the occurrence of the fault starts a control program 64. The computer 62 comes to the waiting state until information of the restoration of PBX 61 is received, and the program 63 also comes to the waiting state without system down. PBX 61 terminating a restoration processing, informs the program 64 of the termination of the fault restoration processing, reads set up information required for PBX 61 from the program 64 and transmits set-up information to PBX. Information required for the execution of the program 63 in PBX 61 is set up and PBX returns in a normal state.

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] [Summary] Regarding a failure recovery method, in a system equipped with an external device and a computer that controls the external device, there is a method necessary for failure recovery monitoring and system startup on the computer side when recovering from a failure of the external device. In order to reduce the amount of labor required and to eliminate unnecessary processing after failure recovery, in a system equipped with an external device and a computer that controls this external device, the The computer is placed in a standby state until the failure is recovered, and when the computer receives a failure recovery notification from the external device, the computer returns to a normal state, and the information necessary to control the external device is sent from the computer to the external device. Configure external devices to be set up.

[Industrial application field]

The present invention relates to a failure recovery method in a system including an external device and a computer that controls the external device.

Figure 6 is a block diagram showing an example of the above system.
In the figure, a private branch exchange (PBX) as an external device
61 is configured to be controlled by a computer 62. The computer 62 controls the private branch exchange 6l according to a management program 63 and an application program 64. Private branch exchange 61 has a telephone (TEL)
65, facsimile terminal (FAX) 66, etc. are connected.

The management program 63 is a part that complies with the rules for communicating with the private branch exchange 61. The application program 64 determines the system, and uses the management program 63 to control external devices.

The type of external device determines which management program to use. However, once a management program is determined, the user does not need to be aware of the above rules.

By dividing the programs into the management program 63 and the abbreviation program 64 as described above, the user does not have to be aware of the rules as described above, and also can prevent problems from occurring in the private branch exchange 861. However, since the management program 63 handles this and performs the necessary processing, the user does not have to be aware of the occurrence of the failure.

As an example of how the system shown in FIG. 6 is used, a case will be described in which a facsimile mail is sent back to the facsimile terminal 66 and an incoming mail is displayed on the telephone 65.

■The computer 62 side is designed to be able to perform facsimile mail service and mail incoming display service.

■A user who wants to send a facsimile sends the facsimile from his or her facsimile to a preset computer, such as the computer 62. ■The computer side receives the contents of the fax and files it. Further, setup information such as where to send the facsimile information and where to send it is extracted from a file set in advance in the computer.

■ Send the call by fax to the recipient you obtained in step ■, and have the recipient's phone display an incoming mail message. In the computer, the management program 63 also manages the status of external devices, so even if a failure occurs in the private branch exchange 6l during the process, the above service will be performed again after the failure is recovered.

As shown in FIG. 7, the private branch exchange 61 includes a PBX main body,
Both processors are duplicated into 0 system and 1 system, and the computer 62 is connected to output port 0 of the O system or output port 1 of the 1 system.

Immediately after the system startup-L, the PBX main unit's 0 series and l
Set up the system to its initial state. It is now assumed that computer 62 is connected to boat 0. If a failure occurs in the O system of the PBX main body, the management program 63 recognizes this and immediately transfers control from the 0 system to the 1 system. Therefore, due to the existence of the management program 63, when a failure occurs in the private branch exchange, the system can be transferred from the O system to the 1 system without waiting time, and the user does not need to be aware that a failure has occurred.

In the above system, if a computer application program goes down when a failure occurs in an external device, the user must be aware of the failure recovery time in order to start up the system after failure recovery. Monitoring failure recovery is complicated. Therefore, it is desirable that the application program does not experience system downtime even if a failure occurs in the external device.

[Conventional technology]

FIG. 7 is a sequence diagram illustrating a conventional gap recovery method. In the figure, the conventional processing procedure will be explained below.

■A computer controls an external device, so some data is exchanged between the computer and the external device.

■A failure occurs in the external device.

■The computer receives notification of a failure from an external device,
Bring down the application program controlling the external device. At this time, if the external device is duplicated, the management program automatically switches to the backup system of the external device. - Manually check for failures in external devices and perform manual reset, etc. to recover.

■After confirming that the external device has recovered from the failure on the computer side, manually start the application program and resume controlling the external device. ■Set up the external device from the computer to initialize the external device and set up the information necessary to execute the application program. The latter setup means, for example, when running a service called e-mail notification, which displays an incoming e-mail notification on a terminal when an e-mail arrives in the mailbox, the external device must be set in advance to which incoming terminal the message will be displayed. This refers to sending the information necessary for the settings from the computer to the external device. ■The external device stores the information received from the computer as setup information. After that, the computer returns to normal state and communication between the computer and external devices becomes possible again. [Problems to be Solved by the Invention] According to the above-mentioned conventional method, the computer's abduction program is brought down every time a failure occurs in an external device, so when the failure in the external device is recovered, the computer It is necessary to manually launch the application program on the side. Therefore, the computer needs to monitor when the external device is recovering from a failure.
There is a problem that the effort required to start up this application program is complicated and time consuming.

Furthermore, since the external device is put into an initial state during setup after recovery from a failure, the process performed by the external device before the failure is repeated even after recovery from the failure, resulting in a lot of waste.

An object of the present invention is to reduce the effort required for failure recovery monitoring and system startup on the computer side when recovering from a failure of an external device in a system equipped with an external device and a computer that controls the external device, and to The goal is to eliminate unnecessary processing. [Means for Solving the Problems] FIG. 1 is a diagram showing the principle of the present invention. In the same figure, the processing procedure of the failure recovery method according to the present invention is as follows. ■Communications are exchanged between the computer and external devices. ■A failure occurs in an external device. ■The external device notifies the computer of the occurrence of a failure.

■Failure recovery processing is performed in the external device in the same way as before.

■'The computer that receives the failure recovery notification puts the application program in a waiting state according to the present invention, without having to bring down the application program as in the past. At this time, if the external device is duplicated, the management program automatically switches to the backup system of the external device, as in the past. ■゜When the external device recovers from a failure, the external device notifies the computer that failure recovery has been completed. ■゜The computer side that receives the failure recovery completion notification does not need to manually confirm failure recovery as in the past, and automatically sends the necessary setup information to the external device under the control of the management program. This setup information does not include conventional information for initializing external devices, but only the information necessary to execute the application program. - Communication between the computer and the external device is resumed as before.

[For production]

Even after receiving notification of a failure, computer application programs can continue without system down.
Since it is in the waiting state, there is no need to launch an ablation program at the time of failure recovery, and therefore there is no need to manually monitor the time of failure recovery.

〔Example〕

FIG. 2 is a sequence diagram illustrating a failure recovery method according to an embodiment of the present invention. The present invention is suitable for a remote system in which a computer and an external device are separated.
This figure shows a sequence of a failure recovery method for a system in which a computer is connected to a PBX and a computer controls a PBX and operates a terminal connected to the PBX. On the computer side, there are an application program that actually controls the PBX and a management program that is started when a failure occurs. In FIG. 2, the sequence of the failure recovery method according to the embodiment of the present invention is as follows. ■The PBX is controlled by a computer application program in the same way as before. ■A failure occurs in the PBX.

■The PBX notifies the computer of the occurrence of a failure.

■The application program that receives the notification of the failure starts the management program.

■The PBX side performs failure recovery processing. The processing up to this point is the same as the conventional one.

■Meanwhile, according to the embodiment of the present invention, the management program on the computer side enters a waiting state by waiting for a failure recovery notification from the PBX. In this waiting state, the application program also enters the waiting state without the system going down like in the past. (2) After completing the recovery process, the PBX notifies the computer management program of the completion of the failure recovery process, according to the embodiment of the present invention.

■The management program reads the setup information necessary for the PBX from the setup file.

■Send the loaded setup information to the PBX and
Set up the information necessary to run the application program. At this time, as in the past, the PBX
There is no need to perform any setup to initialize the . [Phase] The management program notifies the application program that the PBX failure recovery and setup have been completed.

■Now that the normal state has returned, resume communication between the computer and the PBX.

With the above procedure, the PBX is not initialized when the PBX recovers from a failure, so, for example, in facsimile broadcast communications, there is no need to send data again after the failure has been recovered to terminals that have already sent data just before the failure. You only need to send faxes to terminals that are not registered.

FIG. 3 is a sequence diagram illustrating the setup procedure in the above description. In the figure, cent-up information is sent from the computer to the PBX. As described above, the setup information includes setting information such as which terminal should display incoming mail. When the PBX receives the setup information, it stores the information in its memory and
Reports the completion of storing setup information to the computer.

After that, when an e-mail arrives at the destination terminal, a message to that effect will be displayed on the terminal.

Figure 4 is a flowchart showing how to execute the application program. As shown in the figure, the abbling program first requests the management program for the necessary processing in that cycle, and then the information on the results of the management program's execution in response to the processing request is sent to the abduction program. The application program is executed by repeating the operation of receiving the data and holding the result.

Figure 5 is a flowchart showing how to execute an application program. As shown in the figure, the management program first performs necessary startup processing on application programs when starting up the entire system. Next, communication with the PBX is performed in response to a request from the application program explained with reference to FIG. In the middle of this P
When a failure occurs in the BX, the management program 63
Waits for a notification of completion of the recovery process, and upon receiving the notification, sends necessary setup information to the PBX and sets it up, as shown in Figure 2 (2). On the other hand, the application program is notified of the result of communication with the PBX. This interaction with the PBX and notification of the result to the application program are repeated.

〔Effect of the invention〕

As explained above, according to the present invention, in a system equipped with an external device and a computer that controls the external device, even if a failure occurs in the external device, the application program of the computer is prevented from going down. It is no longer necessary to monitor when an external device recovers from a failure, and the application program continues automatically even after recovery from a failure, which is effective in reducing the number of personnel on the computer side and saving time. Further, since the external device is set up with necessary information without being initialized after recovery from a failure, processing performed before the failure is not repeated even after recovery from the failure, improving processing efficiency.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

Fig. 1 is a diagram showing the principle of the present invention, Fig. 2 is a sequence diagram showing a failure recovery processing procedure according to an embodiment of the present invention, Fig. 3 is a diagram showing the setup procedure in Fig. 2, and Fig. 4 is a FIG. 5 is a flowchart explaining the execution of the management program in FIG. 2; FIG. 6 is a block diagram explaining the technical background of the present invention; FIG. FIG. 8 is a block diagram showing an example of the PBX shown in FIG. 8. FIG. 8 is a sequence diagram illustrating a conventional failure recovery method. In the figure, 6l...private branch exchange (PBX), 62...computer, 63...application program, 64...management program, 65...telephone, 66...facsimile. Computer External Device Computer Principle of the Invention Figure 1 Figure 2 Embodiments of the Invention Figure 2 PBX Computer Setup Procedure Figure 3 Execution of Application Program Explanation of the Technical Background of the Invention'': $6 Figure 61 Figure 6 Figure PBX side No. 7 Concave management program Figure 5 Computer external device Conventional method Figure 8

Claims (1)

[Claims] In a system that includes an external device and a computer that controls the external device, the computer is put into a standby state from the time a failure occurs in the external device until the failure is recovered, and failure recovery from the external device is performed. When the computer receives the notification, the computer is returned to a normal state, and information necessary for controlling the external device is sent from the computer to the external device to set up the external device. Disaster recovery method.