JPH07120369B2 - Relay device - Google Patents

Description

Description: FIELD OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to an improvement in a relay device between a card authentication terminal group and two or more hosts, which relays a communication message between them.

<< Outline of the Invention >> In the present invention, when a message to be transmitted to any of the hosts is received from the card authentication terminal, the number of response waiting messages of the corresponding host has reached the number of multi-processes,
After storing the relevant message in the message buffer, wait until the number of response waiting messages of the relevant host becomes available, then send to the relevant host, set the response wait timeout time by the response timer value, and set the response wait status. By doing so, regardless of the number of multi-process cases, the message from the card authentication terminal is accepted until the message buffer is full.

<< Prior Art and its Problems >> This type of relay device is called a cluster controller or the like, and is provided between a card authentication terminal group connected by LAN and two or more hosts connected via a transmission line. It is designed to relay communication messages between each other.

For example, such a transmission device is used when relaying a card authentication terminal group in a large-scale store connected by a LAN to a dedicated line connected to hosts of two or more card companies.

By the way, in the conventional relay device of this type, the number of message processings that can be simultaneously processed by each host, that is, the number of message transmissions that the relay device may return without waiting for a response (hereinafter If the message to be sent to any of the hosts is received from the card authentication terminal, and the number of response waiting messages of the corresponding host has not reached the number of multi-processes, Regardless of the presence of a message waiting for a response, a process is adopted that immediately transmits the message received from the card authentication terminal to the relevant host.

In this case, if one of the messages sent for simultaneous processing cannot be processed and the response is not returned from the host even after the specified response wait timeout time, create an error message and create a message. You must notify the card authentication terminal that is the sender.

For this reason, in the relay device in which this kind of multi-processing number is registered, it is necessary to save the received message from the card authentication terminal while waiting for the response from the corresponding host, and therefore multiple message buffers are stored. Reserved for all hosts.

However, in the case of such a conventional relay device, even if there is a free buffer as a whole message buffer, when the number of response waiting messages for each host reaches the number of multi-processes, the card authentication terminal for that host is immediately transmitted. Since it was designed to stop the reception of telegrams from and send back a busy telegram, there was a problem that the telegram buffer was not fully used and eventually the service deteriorates for the card authentication terminal user.

<Object of Invention> An object of the present invention is to effectively use a message buffer up to its capacity limit in a relay device capable of registering the number of multi-process cases of this kind, and to increase the number of message receptions on the relay device side. , To improve services for card authentication terminal users.

<< Structure and Effect of the Invention >> In order to achieve the above object, the present invention is a relay device for relaying a communication message between a card authentication terminal group and two or more hosts, the card authentication Multiple message buffers for storing messages received from the terminal, a table that stores the number of multi-processes and the response timer value for each host, and a message to be sent to any host from the card authentication terminal is received. When the number of response waiting messages of the corresponding host does not reach the number of multi-processes, the message is stored in the message buffer and immediately sent to the corresponding host, and the response timer wait timeout time is set by the response timer value. While setting the response wait status, if the number of multi-processes has been reached,
After storing the relevant message in the message buffer, wait until the number of response waiting messages of the relevant host becomes available, then send to the relevant host, set the response wait timeout time by the response timer value, and set the response wait status. When the message to be sent to any host is received from the card authentication terminal and the message buffer is full, the message is not stored in the message buffer and the source card authentication terminal is busy. A means for transmitting a message, and a means for transmitting an error message to the sender of the message when the elapse of the response wait timeout time is detected for any of the messages stored in the message buffer. It is a feature.

With such a configuration, even if the number of response waiting messages for each host reaches the number of multi-processes, the busy message is not immediately returned with that alone, and the busy message will not be returned until the entire message buffer becomes full. Since it is returned, it is possible to increase the number of received electronic messages as a relay device, and to improve the service to the card authentication terminal user.

<< Description of Embodiments >> FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a configuration of an entire card authentication system to which a relay device according to the present invention is applied.

In the figure, a cluster controller 1 corresponds to the relay device of the present invention, and a plurality of systems of LAN 1 to
A large number of card authentication terminals (hereinafter referred to as CAT) are connected to 5.

A store controller (office computer) 2 is directly connected to the cluster controller 1 so that communication with them is possible.

Here, the cluster controller 1, the store controller 2 and the card authentication terminal CAT described above are usually installed in the same store and can communicate with the host computer or the like of the center via a dedicated line.

In this example, the cluster controller 1 is connected to two host computers 1 and 2 via their own dedicated lines.

As shown in FIG. 2, the control unit of the cluster controller 1 is mainly composed of a microcomputer mainly composed of CPU3, ROM4 and RAM5, and the dedicated lines of the above-mentioned hosts 1 and 2 are connected to the system bus thereof. Host 1 interface 6 and host 2 interface 7 for connection, and store controller 2, store controller interface 8 for connection with each LAN and LAN 1 interface to LAN 5 interface 9-1 to 9-5 are respectively connected. ing.

And as shown in FIG. 3, a plurality of (18 in the illustrated example) message buffers are provided in the RAM 5,
In each message buffer, the buffer status, host response wait timeout time, source CAT channel number,
The source CAT address, destination and transmission data can be stored respectively.

Here, the content of the buffer status indicates that the numerical value 0 is empty, the numerical value 1 is before the host transmission, the numerical value 2 is during the host transmission, the numerical value 3 is waiting for the host response, and the numerical value 4 is during the CAT transmission.

In addition, the host response wait timeout time is 0000
The host response wait timeout time is stored in units of 0000 to 99999999 (× 10 msec).

Also, the source CAT channel is 1 to 5, the source CAT address is
It is said to be 01 to 1F (hex).

Further, as the destination, the numerical value 1 is assigned to the host 1, the numerical value 2 is assigned to the host 2, and the numerical value 3 is assigned to the store controller 2.

On the other hand, in addition to the above transmission buffer, the host information table and the sixth information shown in FIG.
The present time register shown in the figure is stored.

The host information table stores the number of multi-processes and the response timer value described above for each of host 1, host 2, and store controller.

Here, the number of multi-processes represents the number of cases that can be transmitted to the corresponding host as it is without receiving the response regarding the immediately previous transmission message.

As described above, the transmission message buffer can store up to 18 messages in total for the host 1, host 2, and store controller regardless of the number of multi-processes.

The response timer value is the monitoring timer time from the transmission of the message to the corresponding host until the reception of the response.

The contents of the current time register shown in FIG. 6 are incremented by 1 every 10 msec, for example, by an interrupt process, so that the current time data is sequentially generated in the unit of 00000000 to 99999999 (× 10 msec). Has been done.

On the other hand, the above-mentioned definition of the buffer status represents the time-series state shown in FIG. 4, and in the drawing correspond to the contents numerical values of the buffer status.

Furthermore, the host response waiting timeout time is calculated by reading the current time registered in the current time register immediately after sending it to the host, adding the response timer value of the corresponding host to this, and then calculating that value. It is the time.

Next, FIG. 7 is a flowchart showing the configuration of the system program stored in the ROM 4, and the operation of the apparatus of this embodiment will be systematically described below with reference to this flowchart.

When the program is started by turning on the power, various registers and flags are initialized by known initialization processing (step 701), and then the number of status 3 (waiting for response) buffers is calculated for each host. (Step 702).

At the beginning of the program start, since there is no message stored in the transmission message buffer shown in FIG. 3, it is judged that there is a host that has not reached the number of multi-processes thereafter (Yes at step 703). It is determined that there is no buffer with a status of 1 (before sending the host) to the host (No at step 704), and while checking the existence of the buffer for waiting for a host response (No at step 705), some message is received. It becomes a state of waiting (No at step 706).

In this state, if any message is received (Yes at step 706), whether the received message is from CAT,
Alternatively, it is determined whether it is from the host (host 1, host 2, store controller).

Then, if it is a message from CAT, it is determined whether or not the number of buffers waiting for a response from the corresponding host has already reached the number of multi-processes, on condition that there is an empty buffer (Yes in step 707) (step 707). 708).

At the beginning of the program, since the number of multi-processes has not been reached, it is judged that the result has not reached the number of multi-processes (No at step 708). Then, the received data is stored in the empty buffer, and the source CAT The channel number, address and destination are set, and the buffer status is set to 2 (host transmitting) (step 709).

Then, send the received data to the corresponding host (step
710), the transmission error is judged (step 711).

Here, if it is determined that there is a transmission error (Yes at step 711), an error message is immediately transmitted to the corresponding CAT and the contents of the buffer are cleared (step 712), whereas if it is determined that the transmission is normal (step 712). (No at step 711), the status of the corresponding buffer is set to 3 (waiting for response), and the host response waiting timeout time is set (step 713).

As described above, this host response waiting timeout time is calculated by reading the current time from the current time register immediately after sending it to the host, adding the response timer value read from the host information table to this, and then adding this to the host response. The waiting time-out time is set.

After that, the received data described above is stored in the empty buffer,
The process of setting the channel number, address, and destination of the source CAT, and setting the buffer status to 2 (during host transmission) (step 709) and transmitting the received data to the relevant host (step 710), and then transmitting Depending on whether there is an error (step 711), an error message is transmitted (step 712), the corresponding buffer status is set to 3 (waiting for response), and the host response waiting timeout time is set (step 713). Process until the number of buffers waiting for a response from the corresponding host reaches the number of multi-processes (step 70
8), continue.

On the other hand, when it is determined that the number of buffers waiting for a response from the corresponding host has reached the number of multi-processes while repeating the above reception / transmission process (step
708), in that case, instead of immediately transmitting a busy telegram to the corresponding CAT as in the conventional device, the received data is stored in the empty buffer as it is, and the channel N of the source CAT is stored.
The process of setting o., address and destination, and setting buffer status 1 to (before host transmission) is executed (step 714).

That is, in the case of the conventional device, when the number of multi-processes is reached for any of the hosts, the message reception from the CAT is immediately stopped and the busy message is returned, whereas in the case of the device of the present embodiment, the message is transmitted at that time. If there is free space in the buffer (Yes in step 707), the message from CAT is accepted as it is, but the buffer status is set to 1 (before host transmission), and the transmission itself has a space for the number of multi-processes, as described later. To wait until.

After that, when the host side that has reached the number of multi-processes completes one of the processes and returns a response to that effect (Yes at step 706), immediately the destination CAT of the received data is sent.
The channel in which the message corresponding to the response is registered is searched from the channel No., address, and sender (step 715), and if the corresponding buffer exists (step 716).
Affirmative), the status of the corresponding buffer is 4 (before sending CAT)
(Step 717), the received data is transmitted to the corresponding CAT (step 718), and finally the corresponding buffer is cleared (step 719).

As a result, there is a vacancy in the number of multi-processes for the host by one message.

Then, there is a host which has been stored in the message buffer and has not yet been sent until then, and there is a host whose number of multi-processes has not reached (Yes at step 703) and a buffer with a status of 1 (before host transmission) to the host (step)
704), the buffer status is set to 2
After setting to (during host transmission) (step 720), the message before sending the corresponding host is sent to the corresponding host (step 721), and then depending on whether there is a transmission error (step 722), the error message for the corresponding CAT. To clear the buffer (step 723) or to set the status of the corresponding buffer to 3 (wait for response) and set the host response wait timeout time (step 724) as an alternative. It will be.

In other words, to simplify the above description, if the host reaches the number of multi-processes while sequentially transmitting the messages received from CAT to the corresponding host, there is a free space in the message buffer at that time. For example, a message is still received for the relevant host, and when there is a vacancy in the number of multi-processes for the relevant host, this is transmitted to the relevant host.

On the other hand, if the message buffer becomes full and it is determined that there is no empty buffer by continuing the above operation (No at Step 707), the corresponding CAT at this time
A busy telegram is sent to (step 725),
In this case, it is no longer possible to receive the message from CAT.

Further, in the reception standby state (No at step 706), if a buffer for response wait timeout occurs for any of the transmitted messages due to inability to process on the host side (Yes at step 705), in that case. The corresponding contents are read from the message buffer, an error message is created, and this is sent back to the corresponding CAT (step 726).

Fig. 8A shows a cluster controller (C / C)
From the card authentication terminal (CAT) to any host (host
1, host 2, store controller), it shows the format of the message sent to the sender.As is clear from the figure, the source CAT is composed of the channel number and address, and the destination host is the numerical value 0001,0002. , 0003 are assigned to the host 1, host 2 and store controller, respectively, and card transaction data is added after that.

Also shown in Figure 8B is the host to cluster controller (C /
It shows the format of the message to be sent to the card authentication terminal (CAT) via C). In this case as well, the source host, destination CAT, and processing result data are formatted as shown in the figure. .

As described in the above embodiments, according to the present invention, in addition to the basic effect that the number of multi-process cases and the response waiting timeout time can be set for each host to increase the number of received messages, Even if the number of multi-processes for the host is exceeded, it will continue to accept messages from CAT until the message buffer becomes full, thereby increasing the number of messages accepted and improving service for CAT users. The effect can be obtained.

[Brief description of drawings]

1 is a block diagram showing the overall configuration of a card authentication system to which the present invention is applied, FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing the hardware configuration of a cluster controller, FIG. 3 is a memory map showing the configuration of a message buffer, and FIG. FIG. 4 is an explanatory diagram for explaining the definition of the buffer status, FIG. 5 is a memory map showing the contents of the host information table, FIG. 6 is a memory map showing the contents of the current time register, and FIG. 7 is the same cluster controller. Fig. 8A is a flow chart showing the software configuration of the above, Fig. 8A is a diagram showing the format of a message sent from the card authentication terminal to one of the hosts via the cluster controller, and Fig. 8B is from the host via the cluster controller. It is a figure which shows the format of the electronic message which should be transmitted to a card authentication terminal. 1 …… Cluster controller 2 …… Store controller 3 …… CPU 4 …… ROM 5 …… RAM 6 …… Host 1 interface 7 …… Host 2 interface 8 …… Store controller interface 9-1 to 9-5 …… LAN1 Interface to LAN5 interface

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A relay device between a card authentication terminal group and two or more hosts for relaying a communication message between them, and a plurality of messages for storing a message received from the card authentication terminal. A buffer, a table in which the number of multi-processes and response timer values are stored for each host, and when a message to be sent to one of the hosts is received from the card authentication terminal, the number of response-waiting messages for that host is the multi-process. If the number of messages has not reached the number, the message is stored in the message buffer, then immediately sent to the corresponding host, the response timer waiting timeout time is set by the response timer value, and the response waiting status is set. If
After storing the relevant message in the message buffer, wait until the number of response waiting messages of the relevant host becomes available, then send to the relevant host, set the response wait timeout time by the response timer value, and set the response wait status. When the message to be sent to any host is received from the card authentication terminal and the message buffer is full, the message is not stored in the message buffer and the source card authentication terminal is busy. A means for transmitting a message, and a means for transmitting an error message to the sender of the message when the elapse of the response wait timeout time is detected for any of the messages stored in the message buffer. Characteristic relay device.