ADAPTIVE DEVICE-INITIATED POLLING

• US 20130185593A1
• Filed: 02/20/2013
• Published: 07/18/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 12/20/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: PTC Inc.
• Original Assignee: Axeda Acquisition Corp.
• Inventors: Taylor, John Louis, Canosa, John Thomas
• Granted Patent: US 9,170,902 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 714/37
• CPC Class Codes: G03G 15/5075 Remote control machines, e.g. by a host
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/2221 to test input/output devices or peripheral units
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/2294 by remote test
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/26 Functional testing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3051 Monitoring arrangements for monitoring the configuration of the computing system or of the computing system component, e.g. monitoring the presence of processing resources, peripherals, I/O links, software programs verification or detection of system hardware configuration G06F11/2247
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/327 Alarm or error message display
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/065 related to network devices
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/103 with adaptive polling, i.e. dynamically adapting the polling rate
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/0236 Filtering by address, protocol, port number or service, e.g. IP-address or URL
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/02 based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/025 for remote control or remote monitoring of applications
• 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
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 1/00344 with a management, maintenance, service or repair apparatus monitoring H04N1/00002
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 2201/0015 Control of image communication with the connected apparatus, e.g. signalling capability

Abstract

A method includes periodically sending a polling call to an enterprise system outside the firewall at a first polling rate during normal operating conditions, monitoring for a fault condition, periodically sending polling calls to the device outside the firewall at a second polling rate when a fault condition is detected, the second polling rate being higher than the first polling rate. The second polling rate is used as result of a fault condition. The method also includes sending a problem report with the polling calls when the fault condition is detected.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

periodically sending polling calls to an enterprise system outside the firewall at a first polling rate during normal operating conditions;

monitoring for a fault condition;

periodically sending polling calls to the device outside the firewall at a second polling rate when a fault condition is detected, the second polling rate being higher than the first polling rate, wherein the second polling rate is used as a result of a fault condition; and

sending a problem report with the polling calls when the fault condition is detected.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of receiving service instruction from an external source in response to sending the problem report and performing service responsive to the service instructions.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of receiving service instructions generated by the enterprise system in response to sending the problem report and performing service responsive to the service instructions.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of sending the polling calls at the first polling rate when the fault condition has been corrected.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of sending the polling calls at the first polling rate when a predetermined period has elapsed, the predetermined period beginning when the fault condition is detected.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of sending a problem report includes sending the actual condition that triggered the fault condition.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of sending the problem report includes sending a screen capture of the user interface display at the time of the condition.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of detecting the fault condition includes detecting an external input.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein detecting the external input includes detecting at least one of detecting a telephone call and receiving input from a user interface of the device.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the polling call is sent over the Internet.

11. A method of managing distributed devices in a network environment, the method, comprising:

receiving polling calls from a plurality of distributed devices;

determining whether each polling call includes a problem report; and

notifying a technician if a problem report has been received, wherein the device sending the problem report increases a polling rate for a determined duration.

12. The method of claim 11 further comprising the step of comparing monitored parameters included in the polling calls, comparing the monitored parameters to threshold parameters, and instructing the device to increase a polling rate if the monitored parameters surpass the threshold parameters.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the step of instructing the device includes instructing the device via the Internet.

14. The method of claim 11, wherein the step of receiving polling calls includes receiving the polling calls via the Internet.

15. A centralized enterprise system, comprising:

at least one server;

a plurality of distributed devices, each of the distributed devices being configured to periodically poll the server at a first polling rate during normal conditions and to automatically poll the server at an increased rate when a device detects a fault condition; and

wherein the server automatically notifies a service technician that a fault condition has occurred in the device.

16. The system of claim 15, wherein at least one of the distributed devices accesses the server using the Internet.

17. The system of claim 15, wherein the server is configured to respond to polls from the distributed devices using the Internet.

18. The device of claim 15, wherein the device is configured to detect a fault condition that includes a monitored value surpassing a threshold value.

19. The device of claim 15, wherein the device is configured to detect a fault condition that includes detecting an external input.

20. (canceled)