IMAGE FORMING APPARATUS, METHOD FOR CONTROLLING THE SAME, AND STORAGE MEDIUM

• US 20120036570A1
• Filed: 07/22/2011
• Published: 02/09/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 08/03/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Canon Ayutthaya Limited (Canon Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Canon Ayutthaya Limited (Canon Inc.)
• Inventors: Wada, Katsuhiro
• Granted Patent: US 9,083,671 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 726/11
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/02 for separating internal from external traffic, e.g. firewalls
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/1441 Countermeasures against malicious traffic countermeasures against attacks on cryptographic mechanisms H04L9/002
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/02 based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/40 for recovering from a failure of a protocol instance or entity, e.g. service redundancy protocols, protocol state redundancy or protocol service redirection management of faults, events, alarms or notifications in data switching networks H04L41/06
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 12/12 Detection or prevention of fraud

Abstract

An image forming apparatus to communicate with a service provision system via a firewall may include an identification unit, a determination unit, and a communication unit. The identification unit identifies, out of services provided by the service provision system, a service which provides a substitute function corresponding to a function of the image forming apparatus limited by a failure. The determination unit determines, out of a plurality of communication methods to be used for communication with the service provision system via the firewall, a communication method to be used to perform data communication with the service identified by the identification unit. The communication unit performs data communication with the service identified by the identification unit by using the communication method determined by the determination unit.

Claims

1. An image forming apparatus to communicate with a service provision system via a firewall, the image forming apparatus comprising:

an identification unit configured to identify, out of services provided by the service provision system, a service which provides a substitute function corresponding to a function of the image forming apparatus limited by a failure;

a determination unit configured to determine, out of a plurality of communication methods to be used for communication with the service provision system via the firewall, a communication method to be used to perform data communication with the service identified by the identification unit; and

a communication unit configured to perform data communication with the service identified by the identification unit by using the communication method determined by the determination unit.

2. The image forming apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the determination unit determines a communication method to be used to receive the service identified by the identification unit, based on whether the service identified by the identification unit requires immediacy in communication.

3. The image forming apparatus according to claim 2, wherein the determination unit determines a communication method to be used to receive the service identified by the identification unit, based on whether immediacy is feasible with a communication path status.

4. The image forming apparatus according to claim 3, wherein the determination unit determines a communication method based on both whether the service identified by the identification unit requires immediacy in communication and whether immediacy is feasible with the communication path status.

5. The image forming apparatus according to claim 4, wherein the plurality of communication methods includes both:

a push method with which the service provision system holds a session with the image forming apparatus, retains a state where the session is held, and returns a response via the held session and

a pull method with which the image forming apparatus repetitively requests the service provision system for response and, upon reception of a response returned from the service provision system in response to the request, stops the repetitive requests for response.

6. The image forming apparatus according to claim 5, wherein, in a case where the service identified by the identification unit requires immediacy in communication and immediacy is not feasible with the communication path status, the determination unit determines the pull method.

7. The image forming apparatus according to claim 6, wherein, in a case where the service identified by the identification unit does not require immediacy in communication and immediacy is not feasible with the communication path status, the determination unit determines the pull method.

8. The image forming apparatus according to claim 7, wherein, in a case where the service identified by the identification unit requires immediacy in communication and immediacy is feasible with the communication path status, the determination unit determines the push method.

9. The image forming apparatus according to claim 8, wherein, in a case where the service identified by the identification unit does not require immediacy in communication and immediacy is feasible with the communication path status, the determination unit determines a communication method based on information about whether there is an instruction that the service requires immediacy received from a service provision apparatus.

10. The image forming apparatus according to claim 9, wherein, in a case where the information received from the service provision apparatus is an instruction that the service requires immediacy, the determination unit determines the push method, and

wherein, in a case where the information received from the service provision apparatus is not an instruction that the service requires immediacy, the determination unit determines the pull method.

11. The image forming apparatus according to claim 10, wherein the function limited by a failure is an image processing function of drawing image data, and

wherein both a service which provides a function equivalent to the image processing function limited by a failure, and a service which provides a function equivalent to a compression/decompression function of applying compression and decompression to the image data drawn by the image processing function are instructed to perform substitute processing to achieve data communication.

12. A method for controlling an image forming apparatus to communicate with a service provision system via a firewall, the method comprising:

via an identification unit, identifying, out of services provided by the service provision system, a service which provides a substitute function corresponding to a function of the image forming apparatus disabled by a failure;

via a determination unit, determining, out of a plurality of communication methods to be used for communication with the service provision system via the firewall, a communication method to be used to receive the service identified by the identification unit; and

via a communication unit, controlling the image forming apparatus which performs data communication with the service identified by the identification unit by using the communication method determined by the determination unit.

13. A storage medium storing a program causing an image forming apparatus to execute a method for controlling the image forming apparatus to communicate with a service provision system via a firewall, the method comprising:

identifying, out of services provided by the service provision system, a service which provides a substitute function corresponding to a function of the image forming apparatus disabled by a failure;

determining, out of a plurality of communication methods to be used for communication with the service provision system via the firewall, a communication method to be used to receive the identified service; and

performing data communication with the identified service by using the determined communication method.