INFORMATION PROCESSING APPARATUS, INFORMATION PROCESSING SYSTEM, AND COMPUTER-READABLE STORAGE MEDIUM

• US 20120060212A1
• Filed: 08/22/2011
• Published: 03/08/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 09/03/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Ricoh Company Limited
• Original Assignee: Ricoh Company Limited
• Inventors: INOUE, Eijiro
• Granted Patent: US 9,286,126 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 726/14
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2209/506 Constraint
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5038 considering the execution order of a plurality of tasks, e.g. taking priority or time dependency constraints into consideration scheduling strategies G06F9/4881 and subgroups

Abstract

An information processing apparatus is connectable via a network to service providing devices and a collecting apparatus. The information processing apparatus acquires a selection policy for selecting the devices that lay open to public types of providable services and service level information, and acquires service type information and the service level information from the collecting apparatus which detects the devices and collects the service type information including the types of providable services of the devices and the service level information. The devices capable of providing the accepted type of service are selected according to the selection policy.

Claims

1. An information processing apparatus connectable via a network to a plurality of service providing devices and a predetermined information processing apparatus, comprising:

a processing unit comprising;

a accepting part configured to accept an input of a type of service;

a policy acquiring part configured to acquire a selection policy for selecting the service providing devices that lay open to public types of providable services and service level information;

an information acquiring part configured to acquire service type information and the service level information from the predetermined information processing apparatus which detects the service providing devices and collects the service type information including the types of providable services of the service providing devices and the service level information;

a selecting part configured to select the service providing devices capable of providing the type of service accepted by the accepting part based on the service type information; and

a determining part configured to determine one or more service providing devices from the service providing devices selected by the selecting part according to the selection policy.

2. The information processing apparatus as claimed in claim 1, wherein:

each of the service providing devices lays open to public the service level information for each of a plurality of items of a service level judging index; and

when the policy acquiring part acquires a selection policy to select an item and the service providing device having a highest score for the item, the determining part determines one or more service providing devices from the service providing devices selected by the selecting part in an order starting from the service providing device having a highest score for the item of the service level information selected by the selection policy.

3. The information processing apparatus as claimed in claim 2, wherein:

when the accepting part accepts input of a plurality of service types to be processed time-sequentially, the selecting part specifies the service providing devices capable of providing the service types accepted by the accepting part for each process based on the service type information, and selects candidates of a combination of the service providing devices; and

the determining part determines one or more combinations of the service providing devices from the candidates selected by the selecting part.

4. The information processing apparatus as claimed in claim 3, wherein:

when the policy acquiring part accepts a selection policy to select the service providing device having a highest statistic value of the service level information of a plurality of items, the determining part calculates the statistic value of the service level information of the plurality of items for each of the candidates, and determines one or more combinations of the service providing devices in an order starting from the service providing device having a highest statistic value.

5. The information processing apparatus as claimed in claim 3, wherein:

when the policy acquiring part acquires a selection policy to select the item and the service providing device having a highest score for the item, the determining part calculates the statistic value of the service level information only for the item selected by the selection policy for each of the candidates, and determines one or more service providing devices in an order starting from the service providing device having a highest statistic value.

6. The information processing apparatus as claimed in claim 3, wherein;

when the policy acquiring part acquires a selection policy to select at least one of the plurality of items and a lower limit service level value for each item, the determining part calculates the statistic value of the service level information only for the item selected by the selection policy for each of the candidates, and determines one or more service providing devices having a statistic value greater than or equal to the lower limit service level value.

7. The information processing apparatus as claimed in claim 2, wherein the plurality of items of the service level information include at least two items selected from a group consisting of availability, reliability, performance, and extensibility.

8. The information processing apparatus as claimed in claim 2, wherein the service level information includes numerical values corresponding to the plurality of items prescribed by Service Level Agreement (SLA) according to service levels.

9. The information processing apparatus as claimed in claim 3, wherein:

when the determining part is unable to determine one or more combinations of the service providing devices based on the selection policy acquired by the policy acquiring part, the policy acquiring part again accepts the selection policy for the service providing devices.

10. The information processing apparatus as claimed in claim 1, wherein the processing unit further comprises:

a registration accepting part configured to accept input of the service type of a service providing device and the service level information,

wherein the registration accepting part sends identification information of the service providing device, the service type, and the service level information to the predetermined information processing apparatus.

11. The information processing apparatus as claimed in claim 1, wherein the plurality of service providing devices provide at least one of an OCR (Optical Character Recognition) process, a language translation process, and an electronic mail transmission process as services.

12. The information processing apparatus as claimed in claim 3, wherein:

when a part of the plurality of service providing devices is coupled to a public network on an outer side of a firewall when viewed from the information processing apparatus, and a remaining part of the plurality of service providing devices is coupled to a private network on an inner side of the firewall when viewed from the information processing apparatus, one of the plurality of service providing devices coupled to the public network and included in the combination of the service providing devices determined by the determining part includes a process executing part configured to request execution of processes of a plurality of services simultaneously.

13. The information processing apparatus as claimed in claim 12, wherein the process executing part, after acquiring a process result of a service of a service processing device coupled to the public network, requests the a process to a service providing device coupled to the private network.

14. An information processing system comprising:

a plurality of service providing devices configured to lay open to public service types that are providable thereby and service level information;

an information processing apparatus coupled to the service providing devices via a network and configured to receive services from the service providing devices;

a detecting part configured to detect the service providing devices on the network;

a collecting part configured to collect service type information including the service type providable by the service providing devices and the service level information;

an accepting part configured to accept input of the service type;

a policy acquiring part configured to acquire a selection policy for selecting the service providing devices;

an information acquiring part configured to acquire the service type information and the service level information from the information processing apparatus;

a selecting part configured to select the service providing devices capable of providing the type of service accepted by the accepting part based on the service type information; and

a determining part configured to determine one or more service providing devices from the service providing devices selected by the selecting part according to the selection policy.

15. The information processing system as claimed in claim 14, further comprising:

a conversion rule table configured to convert the service level information to service level values according to service levels; and

a converting part configured to convert the service level information into the service level values based on the conversion rule table,

wherein the determining part determines the service providing device having the service level value converted from the service level information by the converting part greater than or equal to a value accepted as the selection policy by the policy accepting part.

16. The information processing system as claimed in claim 14, wherein:

a part of the plurality of service providing devices is coupled to a public network on an outer side of a firewall when viewed from the information processing apparatus;

a remaining part of the plurality of service providing devices is coupled to a private network on an inner side of the firewall when viewed from the information processing apparatus; and

the collecting part collects the service type information indicating the types of services providable by the service providing devices and the service level information, without distinguishing the public network and the private network.

17. The information processing system as claimed in claim 14, wherein:

the information processing apparatus includes a registration accepting part configured to accept input of the service type of a service providing device and the service level information; and

the collecting part collects identification information of the service providing device, the service type, and the service level information accepted by the registration accepting part.

18. An information processing apparatus connectable to a predetermined information processing apparatus via a network,

the predetermined information processing apparatus including a policy acquiring part configured to acquire a selection policy for selecting the service providing devices that lay open to public types of providable services and service level information, an information acquiring part configured to acquire service type information and the service level information from the predetermined information processing apparatus which detects the service providing devices and collects the service type information including the types of providable services of the service providing devices and the service level information, a selecting part configured to select the service providing devices capable of providing the type of service accepted by the accepting part based on the service type information, and a determining part configured to determine one or more service providing devices from the service providing devices selected by the selecting part according to the selection policy,

wherein the information processing apparatus comprises:

a processing unit comprising;

a device detecting part configured to detect the service providing devices;

a device information collecting part configured to collect the service type information including the types of services providable by the service providing devices and the service level information; and

a sending part configured to send the service type information and the service level information to the predetermined information processing apparatus.