RELAY SERVER AND CLIENT TERMINAL

• US 20080147825A1
• Filed: 12/10/2007
• Published: 06/19/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 12/19/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Murata Machinery Limited (Muratec)
• Original Assignee: Murata Machinery Limited (Muratec)
• Inventors: Tanimoto, Yoshifumi
• Granted Patent: US 8,010,598 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/218
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/104 Peer-to-peer [P2P] networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1059 Inter-group management mechanisms, e.g. splitting, merging or interconnection of groups
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1065 Discovery involving distributed pre-established resource-based relationships among peers, e.g. based on distributed hash tables [DHT] pre-configuration of logical or physical connections H04L67/1053
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/288 Distributed intermediate devices, i.e. intermediate devices for interaction with other intermediate devices on the same level
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/51 Discovery or management thereof, e.g. service location protocol [SLP] or web services
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/56 Provisioning of proxy services store-and-forward switching systems in data switching networks H04L12/54
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/565 Conversion or adaptation of application format or content adding application control or application functional data H04L67/561

Abstract

A relay server is connected to a LAN and communicable with a relay server of another LAN. The relay server includes an account information registering unit arranged to store account information including information of a client terminal connected to the same LAN; a relay group information registering unit arranged to store relay group information including information of a group of relay servers permitting connection with one another; a shared resource information registering unit arranged to store shared resource information including information of a resource and information of the client terminals sharing the resource; a relay processing unit arranged to, when accepting from the client terminal stored in the account information registering unit operation instruction on a resource operable by a client terminal connected to another LAN based on the shared resource information, relay the operation of the resource based on the relay group information; and a resource information providing unit arranged to, when accepting an access based on a predetermined protocol from an external client terminal, convert the shared resource information to a format of the predetermined protocol and providing the information to the external client terminal, the external client terminal other than the client terminal stored in the account information registering unit being registerable in the shared resource information registering unit.

Claims

1. A relay server connected to a LAN and communicable with a relay server of another LAN, the relay server comprising:

an account information registering unit arranged to store account information including information of a client terminal connected to the same LAN;

a relay group information registering unit arranged to store relay group information including information of a group of relay servers permitting connection with one another;

a shared resource information registering unit arranged to store shared resource information including information of a resource and information of the client terminals sharing the resource;

a relay processing unit arranged to, when accepting from the client terminal stored in the account information registering unit operation instruction on a resource operable by a client terminal connected to another LAN based on the shared resource information, relay the operation of the resource based on the relay group information; and

a resource information providing unit arranged to, when accepting an access based on a predetermined protocol from an external client terminal, convert the shared resource information to a format of the predetermined protocol and providing the information to the external client terminal, the external client terminal other than the client terminal stored in the account information registering unit being registerable in the shared resource information registering unit.

2. The relay server according to claim 1, wherein information regarding whether or not to permit the access based on the predetermined protocol is set in each resource registered in the shared resource information, and the resource information providing unit extracts information related to the resource to which access based on the predetermined protocol is permitted of the resources contained in the shared resource information and provides the information to the external client terminal.

3. The relay server according to claim 2, wherein information related to an operation permitted with respect to the external client terminal is set in each resource registered in the shared resource information, and the resource information providing unit embeds a command module related to the permitted operation in the information related in the resource to which the access based on the predetermined protocol is permitted and provides the information to the external client terminal.

4. The relay server according to claim 1, wherein the external client terminal can be registered in the shared resource information registering unit.

5. The relay server according to claim 2, wherein the external client terminal can be registered in the shared resource information registering unit.

6. The relay server according to claim 3, wherein the external client terminal can be registered in the shared resource information registering unit.

7. The relay server according to claim 2, setting can be performed as to whether or not to permit the access based on the predetermined protocol for each resource registered in the shared resource information registering unit.

8. A client terminal stored in the account information registering unit by the relay server according to claim 1, wherein the external client terminal is registerable in the shared resource information managed by the shared resource information registering unit.

9. A client terminal stored in the account information registering unit by the relay server according to claim 2, wherein the external client terminal is registerable in the shared resource information managed by the shared resource information registering unit.

10. A client terminal stored in the account information registering unit by the relay server according to claim 3, wherein the external client terminal is registerable in the shared resource information managed by the shared resource information registering unit.

11. A client terminal stored in the account information registering unit by the relay server according to claim 4, wherein the external client terminal is registerable in the shared resource information managed by the shared resource information registering unit.

12. A client terminal stored in the account information registering unit by the relay server according to claim 7, wherein the external client terminal is registerable in the shared resource information managed by the shared resource information registering unit.

13. A client terminal stored in the account information registering unit by the relay server according to claim 2, wherein whether or not to permit the access based on the predetermined protocol is set for each resource managed by the shared resource information unit.

14. A method of controlling a relay server connected to a LAN and communicable with a relay server of another LAN, the method comprising the steps of:

storing account information including information of a client terminal connected to the same LAN;

storing relay group information including information of a group of relay servers permitting connection with one another;

storing shared resource information including information of a resource and information of the client terminals sharing the resource in a memory;

when accepting from the client terminal stored in an account information registering unit operation instruction on a resource operable by a client terminal connected to another LAN based on the shared resource information, relaying the operation of the resource based on the relay group information; and

when accepting an access based on a predetermined protocol from an external client terminal, converting the shared resource information to a format of the predetermined protocol and providing the information to the external client terminal, the external client terminal other than the client terminal stored in the account information registering unit being registerable in the memory.

15. The method of controlling the relay server according to claim 14, wherein information as to whether or not to permit the access based on the predetermined protocol is set in each resource registered in the shared resource information;

and the method further comprises the step of;

extracting information related to the resource to which access based on the predetermined protocol is permitted of the resources contained in the shared resource information and providing the information to the external client terminal.

16. The method of controlling the relay server according to claim 15, wherein information related to an operation permitted with respect to the external client terminal is set in each resource registered in the shared resource information;

and the method further comprises the step of;

embedding a command module related to the permitted operation in the information related to the resource to which the access based on the predetermined protocol is permitted and providing the information to the external client terminal.

17. The method of controlling the relay server according to claim 14, further including a step of registering the external client terminal in the memory.

18. The method of controlling the relay server according to claim 15, further including a step of registering the external client terminal in the memory.

19. The method of controlling the relay server according to claim 16, further including a step of registering the external client terminal in the memory.

20. The method of controlling the relay server according to claim 15, further including a step of setting whether or not to permit the access based on the predetermined protocol for each resource registered in the memory by the relay server.