System and method for the hybrid harvesting of information from peripheral devices

• US 20040107275A1
• Filed: 12/03/2002
• Published: 06/03/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 12/03/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Hewlett Packard Enterprise Development LP (Hewlett-Packard Enterprise Company)
• Original Assignee: Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. (HP Inc.)
• Inventors: Hardcastle, Michael J., Perez, Robert L., Cox, William A.
• Granted Patent: US 7,437,439 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/223
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/12 specially adapted for proprietary or special-purpose networking environments, e.g. medical networks, sensor networks, networks in vehicles or remote metering networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/329 in the application layer [OSI layer 7]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/40 Network security protocols

Abstract

In one embodiment there is disclosed a system and method for harvesting data from at least one device, such that there is stored on a particular device, prior to the start of each harvesting session, an application program, which enables the harvesting of certain data from the device. At the conclusion of a harvesting session, the application program is removed from the device. In one embodiment the application is in the form of a chailet

Claims

1. A method for harvesting data from at least one device, said method comprising:

storing on a particular device an application program, said storing occurring prior to the start of a harvesting session;

enabling said stored application to harvest certain data from said device;

communicating harvested data to an application common to said device; and

removing said stored application from said device at the conclusion of said communicating step.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

prior to said storing step, determining if said data is obtainable from SNMP.

3. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

inhibiting said storing and enabling steps if it is determined that said data is obtainable from SNMP.

4. The method of claim 2 further comprising:

if it is determined that said data is not obtainable from SNMP, then determining if a said particular device supports JVM.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein said common application is the SNMP application.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein said device is a printer.

7. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

repeating said storing, enabling, communicating and removing steps for at least one device; and

storing communicated harvested data in a database in relationship to said device from which said data was harvested.

8. The method of claim 7 further including:

transmitting said stored data to a processing center.

9. The method of claim 8 wherein said transmitting step occurs only when data has been harvested from a particular group of said devices.

10. A system for harvesting data from at least one device, said system comprising:

means for storing within a particular device a chailet sent from a source external to said device,

means, including said stored chailet, for harvesting certain data from said device;

means for communicating said harvested data to a database remote from said device; and

means for removing said stored chailet from said stored device at the conclusion of said harvesting of said certain data from said at least one device.

11. The system of claim 10 wherein said storing means includes at least a portion of a memory device resident within said device, said memory device primarily used by said device for tasks other than storing said application program.

12. The system of claim 10 further comprising:

means, operable if said data from said particular device is obtainable from SNMP, for inhibiting said storing and said enabling means.

13. The system of claim 10 further comprising:

means for determining if said particular device supports JVM, and if said data is not obtainable from SNMP, for enabling said storing means with respect to said particular device.

14. The system of claim 10 wherein said device is a printer.

15. The system of claim 10 further comprising:

means for storing communicated ones of said certain data from at least one device in a database in relationship to said device from which said data was harvested.

16. The system of claim 15 further comprising:

means for transmitting said stored data to a processing center.

17. The system of claim 15 wherein said transmitting means is only enabled when data has been harvested from a particular group of said devices.

18. The system of claim 10 wherein said storing means includes volatile memory resident within said device.

19. A method of periodically harvesting data from at least one peripheral device, said devices containing limited volatile memory, said method comprising:

storing within said volatile memory a relatively small amount of code;

harvesting data from said device, said harvesting facilitated by said stored code;

communicating said harvested data from said device to a storage location central to at least one device; and

removing said stored code from said volatile memory on a periodic basis.

20. The method of claim 19 wherein said code is stored at the beginning of each harvesting session with respect to a particular device and removed at the end of said harvesting session.