KR19990074004A - DMI management system having auxiliary memory information retrieval function and its information retrieval method - Google Patents

Abstract

The present invention relates to a DMI management system having an auxiliary memory information retrieval function operating in computer systems connected by a network, and a method for retrieving the information. The DMI management system including a console monitor, a management information database, and a DMI service provider is provided. A SCSI driver that manages physical information of various auxiliary storage devices included in the managed system; An information collector and an information collector for collecting physical information about the auxiliary storage device through the SCSI driver and collecting partition information and logical drive information through the operating system of the managed system by receiving information retrieval command from the DMI service provider. And a secondary storage agent having a DMI data changer for converting the information collected by the DMI data structure to a DMI data structure and a DMI data transfer unit for transmitting the information changed to the DMI data structure to the DMI service provider. It features.

According to the present invention, the DMI management system can easily implement a function for inquiring information on various auxiliary storage devices provided in the computer system from another computer located at a remote location, and by using one agent for the auxiliary storage device. You get both physical and logical drive information.

Description

DM management system having auxiliary memory information retrieval function and its information retrieval method

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to computer systems operating on a network, and more particularly, to a D.M. (Management System (DMI) management system hereinafter referred to as DMI) operating on a computer system connected to a network.

A user of a computer system connected by a network needs to obtain system configuration information of another computer system located at a remote location. In particular, it is very useful for the operation of a computer system that a user can obtain information about each auxiliary storage device provided by another computer system at a long distance.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention was created to meet the above needs, and an object thereof is to provide a DMI management system having a function of inquiring information on various auxiliary storage devices provided in a computer system from another computer located at a long distance. It is done.

Another object of the present invention is to provide a method for retrieving information on an auxiliary memory device in the DMI management system.

1 is a block diagram of an overall configuration of a DMI management system according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a detailed block diagram of the management system of FIG. 1.

FIG. 3 is a detailed block diagram of the system to be managed in FIG. 1.

4 is a block diagram illustrating an information retrieval function in a DMI management system according to the present invention.

In order to achieve the above object, a console monitor which transmits a command for retrieving information about managed parts included in another computer system via a network, receives and displays the information, and stores system management information of the managed system. The DMI management system according to the present invention includes a management information database, a DMI service provider that receives the command from the console monitor, selects an agent, instructs information retrieval, and manages the management information database. A SCSI driver that manages physical information of various auxiliary memory devices; And an information collecting unit configured to receive an information retrieval command from the DMI service provider, collect physical information about an auxiliary storage device through the SCSI driver, and collect partition information and logical drive information through an operating system of the managed system. A secondary memory device having a DMI data changer for changing the information collected by the information collector into a DMI type data structure and a DMI data transfer unit for transferring the changed information to the DMI data type to the DMI service provider. It further comprises an agent.

In order to achieve the above another object, a method for retrieving information on a secondary storage device provided in a managed system connected by a network according to the present invention in a management system includes: (a) information about the secondary storage device in a management system; Transmitting a command to search for the management system; (b) analyzing the command for searching to collect physical information through a SCSI driver, and collecting partition information and logical drive information through an operating system of the managed system; (c) converting the information collected in step (b) into a data structure of DMI type; (d) storing the changed data structure in the database in the step (c) in a database and transmitting the information to the management system; And (e) displaying the information transmitted from the management system to the user.

The DMI management system is a management system that applies the DMI specification established by the Desktop Management Task Force. It monitors other computer systems from one computer system connected to the network and changes the configuration of other computer systems. Support to do

Computer systems on the network on which the DMI management system operates are divided into managed systems and managed systems. The managed system includes a plurality of agents for delivering information collected from the managed components included therein to the management system, and the management system retrieves or manages the information transferred from the managed system. It is equipped with a console monitor to change the configuration of the system. Thus, each computer system on the network may be a managed system or a managed system depending on a role relationship with other computer systems in a specific situation.

The functions supported by the DMI management system are largely capable of retrieving system configuration information from other remote computer systems, changing the system configuration, and monitoring the contents of the console monitor when an abnormality occurs in the managed components included in the other computer system. There is a function to detect.

Hereinafter, the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.

1, the DMI management system according to the present invention includes a console monitor 100 provided in the management system 10, a DMI service provider 200 and an agent unit 210 provided in the managed system 20. It is configured by.

The function provided by the DMI management system according to the present invention includes a function for retrieving configuration information of a managed system located at a remote location through the console monitor 100, changing the configuration of the system, and managed hardware 230 and an operating system ( If an abnormality occurs in the management target component, such as 240), the content is divided into a function that can be confirmed through the console monitor (100).

The DMI management system according to the present invention is configured by the DMI specification. DMI standardizes data and provides a unified program interface to easily and conveniently manage various information or events on parts for management by the console monitor 100.

The process of retrieving system configuration information and changing system configuration is as follows. When the user requests the managed system 20 to retrieve the information by the console monitor 100, the DMI service provider 200 included in the managed system 20 may select one of the agents constituting the agent unit 210. Instruct the information retrieval by selecting an agent that can handle the request. Then, the agent collects the information from the parts to be managed, transforms the collected information into the Management Interface Format (MIF) of the DMI, and stores the information in the management information database. The DMI service provider 200 reads the corresponding information from the management information database and delivers the information to the console monitor 100. The user may grasp the information received through the console monitor 100 and may transmit a request for changing the system configuration to the managed system 20. The process for changing the system configuration is also performed in a similar flow as the system information retrieval process.

The process of monitoring a problem occurring in the managed system 20 is as follows. Each agent constituting the agent unit 210 detects various problems generated in the corresponding management target part and stores the problems in the management information database 250. The DMI service provider 200 reads the contents stored in the management information database 250 and transmits a warning message to the console monitor 100. The user can view the warning message displayed by the console monitor 100 and take appropriate action.

Referring to FIG. 2, the console monitor 100 included in the management system 10 includes a communication interface 110, a management operation unit 120, and a user interface 120. The communication interface 110 and the management operation unit 120 are each implemented according to the DMI specification.

The user interface 130 is an interface for displaying system configuration information and warning messages to a user and receiving a system configuration change command from the user. The user interface 130 includes a server view window 132, a data view window 134, and a warning view window ( 136) and the like.

The server view window 132 shows a list of managed systems among computer systems connected to a network. The data view window 134 shows the system configuration information of the managed system selected in the server view window 132 by a tree structure. When the user selects a part to be searched or changed, the data of the managed system is displayed. Show information collected from agents. The alert view window 136 shows the problem occurring in the managed component of the managed system in the form of DMI event processing.

According to FIG. 3, the managed system includes a DMI service provider 200, an agent 210, a device driver 220, managed hardware 230, an operating system 240, a management information database 250, and the like. It is configured by.

The communication interface 202 and the service provider 204 constituting the DMI service provider 200 are each implemented according to the DMI specification.

In the present invention, the components to be managed include various components included in the system main board 232, an optional card such as a graphics card, a LAN card, a SCSI card 234, a mass storage device such as a RAID, a power supply, and a fan. All managed hardware 230 included in the computer system may be included, and the operating system 240 or an application program may also be included.

The agent unit 210 may be provided with a separate agent for each management target part, or a common agent for a plurality of management target parts may be installed.

There are three ways to interface between the managed part and each agent. First, the system driver 222 reads or writes information of components installed on the main board 232 to or from the DMI BIOS 290 included in the Basic Input / Output System (BIOS). The agent 212 may exchange the information with the system driver 222 through the BIOS interface 280. Second, information about hardware that cannot be controlled by the system BIOS, such as Small Computer System Interface (SCSI) or Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks (RAID), is provided between the agent and the device driver. That is, the auxiliary memory agent 214 collects information about the auxiliary memory 234 from the SCSI driver 224. Third, information about software components such as an operating system or an application program is directly exchanged with the operating system agent 216 and the operating system 240.

The event detector 270 continuously monitors whether an event occurs in the operating system 240 and informs the event data changer 270 of the fact when an event occurrence is detected. The event data changing unit 270 receives an instruction indicating that an event has occurred from the event detecting unit 260, changes the event data generated by the operating system into a DMI indicator data form, and delivers the event data to the event agent 218.

In FIG. 3, the flow of information between the auxiliary storage agent 214 according to the present invention between the auxiliary storage device 234 is indicated by a thick line.

Referring to FIG. 4, the auxiliary storage agent 214 includes an information collecting unit 300, a DMI data changing unit 302, and a DMI data transferring unit 304.

The information collection unit 300 collects physical information about the auxiliary storage device such as the hard disk 312, the floppy disk 314, the CD-ROM 316, and the tape 318 through the SCSI driver 310. In addition, the operating system 240 collects partition information and information on logical drives. In this case, when the operating system 240 is Windows NT provided by Microsoft Corporation, the information is collected through a Win32 API (application program interface).

Information collected by the information collecting unit 300 is changed by the DMI data changing unit 302 into a data structure of the DMI type. At this time, the collected various information is classified into the following six groups.

1) disk controller group

A group of controllers in auxiliary memory. It contains information about storage controllers that conform to international standards such as SCSI, IDE, and EIDE attached to the system.

2) Disk device group

For hard disks, floppy disks and CD-ROMs, it contains information about physical storage devices such as type, name, capacity, availability, and the like.

3) sequential access device group

It contains information about physical storage devices using a sequential approach, such as cartridge tapes and digital audio tapes (DAT).

4) partition group

Contains partition information (name, size, type, etc.) of the disk device managed by the operating system.

5) logical drive group

Contains logical drive information managed by the operating system.

6) Disk Partition Mapping Group

A group that specifies the association between disk device groups and devices in partition groups. This tells you which partition is on which disk.

The DMI data transfer unit 304 transmits the information changed by the DMI data changer 302 into a DMI type data structure to the DMI service provider 200.

Various auxiliary storage devices connected to the managed system are included with each unique index in one of the groups. Therefore, when the console monitor 100 requests predetermined information about the auxiliary storage device from the managed system 20, the console monitor 100 transmits the group name and the unique index of the desired device to the DMI service provider 200, and the DMI service. The provider 200 will deliver it to the secondary storage agent 214.

According to the present invention, the DMI management system can easily implement a function for inquiring information on various auxiliary storage devices included in the computer system from another computer located at a long distance.

In addition, one agent can obtain both physical information about the auxiliary storage device and logical drive information.

Claims (3)

From the console monitor, a console monitor for transmitting and receiving information about managed parts included in other computer systems over the network, receiving and displaying the information, a management information database for storing system management information of the managed system, and the console monitor. In the DMI management system comprising a DMI service provider for receiving the command to select the agent to instruct information search and manage the management information database, A SCSI driver managing physical information of various auxiliary memory devices provided in the management target system; And An information collecting unit receiving information retrieval command from the DMI service provider and collecting physical information about the auxiliary storage device through the SCSI driver, and collecting partition information and logical drive information through an operating system of the managed system; A secondary storage agent having a DMI data changer for converting the information collected by the information collector to a DMI type data structure and a DMI data transfer unit for transferring the information changed to the data structure of the DMI data type to the DMI service provider. DMI management system characterized in that it further comprises. The method of claim 1, wherein the DMI data changer And dividing the information collected by the information collecting unit into a disk controller group, a disk device group, a sequential access device group, a partition group, a logical drive group, and a disk partition mapping group. Claims [1] A method for retrieving information on an auxiliary memory device provided in a managed system connected by a network, in a management system. (a) transmitting a command for retrieving information about the auxiliary storage device from the management system to the management target system; (b) analyzing the command for searching to collect physical information through a SCSI driver, and collecting partition information and logical drive information through an operating system of the managed system; (c) converting the information collected in step (b) into a data structure of DMI type; (d) storing the changed data structure in the database in the step (c) in a database and transmitting the information to the management system; And and (e) displaying the information transmitted by the management system to the user.