Methods and system for event transmission

• US 20060224699A1
• Filed: 04/10/2004
• Published: 10/05/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 07/17/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: ABB Schweiz AG (ABB Limited)
• Original Assignee: ABB Research Ltd. (ABB Limited)
• Inventors: Doppelhamer, Jens, Hu, Zaijun, Veryha, Yauheni, Kruse, Eckhard
• Granted Patent: US 8,005,941 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/219
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/069 using logs of notifications; Post-processing of notifications
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/01 Protocols
• 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 67/2876 Pairs of inter-processing entities at each side of the network, e.g. split proxies
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/564 Enhancement of application control based on intercepted application data
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/5682 Policies or rules for updating, deleting or replacing the stored data
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/59 Providing operational support to end devices by off-loading in the network or by emulation, e.g. when they are unavailable
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/329 in the application layer [OSI layer 7]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/40 Network security protocols

Abstract

The invention relates to methods and a system for the management and transmission of events from a server to at least one client, by means of a communication connection, whereby the server has at least one server event service, communicating with at least one client, by means of a communication connection and at least one unit interface, communicating with the at least one server event service. The client comprises at least one client event server, communicating with the server, by means of a communication connection. A logging of possible events takes place in both the client event server and the server event service. Incident events are passed from the unit interface to the server event service, the client event service initiates requests to the server event service and, based on a submitted request to the server event service, the recorded events are transmitted to the client event service. Events received from the client event service are transmitted to a client application.

Claims

1. A method for managing and transmitting events from a server via a communication link to at least one client where

possible events are logged in a client, event service for the purpose of initializing and/or updating the client,

possible events are logged in a server event service for the purpose of initializing and/or updating the server,

detected events which have been logged are transferred from an installation interface to the server event service,

requests initiated by the client event service regarding the detected events are made to the server event service,

on the basis of a request which has been made to the server event service the detected events are transmitted to the client event service and

events received by the client event service, are transmitted to a client application.

2. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the events to be transmitted are detected by a data capture unit in a technical installation and are reported to the installation interface of the server.

3. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the client application logs a client callback function in the client event service for every event about which it is to be notified, and the client event service uses the communication link to log a corresponding server callback function in the server event service.

4. The method as claimed in claim 3, wherein to log the callback functions for an event with which the same event name is associated with the client and with the server in preparation for the method, the following steps are performed:

the client application calls a client logging function from the client event service and provides said function with the name of the event in question and with a pointer to the client callback function which is to be logged,

the client logging function generates a unique event identifier and transmits the event identifier and the event name via the communication link to a server logging function of the server event service, the server logging function logs a server callback function with the installation interface by transferring the event name,

the server logging function stores a data record, which contains at least the event identifier and a pointer to the server callback function which is to be logged, in a server event table,

the server logging function reports the performance of the logging operation to the client logging function of the client event service via the communication link, and

the client logging function logs the client callback function by storing a data record in a client event table, the data record containing at least the event identifier and a pointer to the client callback function which is to be logged.

5. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein after a client callback function has been logged for the first time the client logging function starts a request generator which then makes requests for event transmission to the server event service.

6. The method as claimed in claim 5, wherein the request generator of the client event service makes the requests for event transmission to the server event service cyclically.

7. The method as claimed in claim 3, wherein events are transmitted by performing the following steps:

the installation interface detects an event which has occurred and calls the server callback function logged for this event, the server callback function produces an entry describing the event in at

least one event queue, upon the next request from the client event service for event transmission

the server event service reads the entry produced from the event queue and transmits it via the communication link to the client event service the client event service, takes the entry received and ascertains and calls

the client callback function logged for this event, and

the client callback function executes a defined action for the corresponding event in the client application.

8. The method as claimed in claim 7, wherein optionally a tidying function of the server event service is called which deletes the server event table and the event queue if the client event service is no longer communicating with the server event service.

19. The method as claimed in claim 2, wherein the client application logs a client callback function in the client event service for every event about which it is to be notified, and the client event service uses the communication link to log a corresponding server callback function in the server event service.

20. The method as claimed in claim 4, wherein events are transmitted by performing the following steps:

the installation interface detects an event which has occurred and calls the server callback function logged for this event,

the server callback function produces an entry describing the event in at least one event queue,

upon the next request from the client event service for event transmission the server event service reads the entry produced from the event queue and transmits it via the communication link to the client event service,

the client event service takes the entry received and ascertains and calls the client callback function logged for this event, and

the client callback function executes a defined action for the corresponding event in the client application.

9. A system for managing and transmitting events from a server via a communication link to at least one client, where

for the purpose of logging possible events the client has at least one client event service which uses a communication link to make requests for event transmission to a server event service and to transmit received events to a client application,

for the purpose of logging possible events the server has at least one server event service which uses a communication link to transmit events to a client event service,

the server has at least one installation interface which transfers events which have occurred to the at least one server event service.

10. The system as claimed in claim 9, wherein the installation interface is connected to a data capture unit of a technical installation in order to read in events detected by the data capture unit.

11. The system as claimed in claim 9, wherein the server event service has at least one server callback function which can be logged for at least one event and which is called when an event for which it is logged occurs.

12. The system as claimed in claim 9, wherein the server event service has at least one server logging function for logging server callback functions, at least one server event table for holding data records which describe a respective logging operation, and at least one event queue for holding entries which describe a respective event.

13. The system as claimed in claim 9, the server event service has, for every client event Wherein the service with which it communicates via a communication link, a separate client data record which respectively contains at least one server event table and at least one event queue.

14. The system as claimed in claim 13, wherein the server event service has a tidying function which deletes the client data record if the associated client event service is no longer communicating with the server event service.

15. The system as claimed in claim 12, wherein the server event table is in the form of a hash table and holds data records which contain at least one event identifier and a pointer to a server callback function which is to be logged.

16. The system as claimed in claim 9, wherein the client has at least one client callback function which can be logged for at least one event and which is called when the event for which it is logged occurs.

17. The system as claimed in claim 9, wherein that the client event service has at least one client logging function for logging client callback functions, at least one client event table for holding data records which describe the log, and at least one request generator for making cyclic requests for event transmission.

18. The system as claimed in claim 17, wherein the client event table is in the form of a hash table and holds data records which contain at least one event identifier and a pointer to a client callback function which is to be logged.