INFORMATION PROCESSING APPARATUS AND METHOD, INFORMATION PROCESSING SYSTEM, AND NON-TRANSITORY COMPUTER READABLE MEDIUM

• US 20150120935A1
• Filed: 05/28/2014
• Published: 04/30/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 10/30/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Fujifilm Business Innovation Corp. (Fujifilm Holdings Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Fuji Xerox Company Limited (Xerox Holdings Corp.)
• Inventors: INOMATA, Kohshiro, FUKASAWA, Tetsuo
• Granted Patent: US 10,091,129 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/226
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/45562 Creating, deleting, cloning virtual machine instances
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/45575 Starting, stopping, suspending or resuming virtual machine instances
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45558 Hypervisor-specific management and integration aspects
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5011 the resources being hardware resources other than CPUs, Servers and Terminals
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5096 wherein the managed service relates to distributed or central networked applications
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/74 measures in reaction to resource unavailability
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/83 based on usage prediction
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1097 for distributed storage of data in networks, e.g. transport arrangements for network file system [NFS], storage area networks [SAN] or network attached storage [NAS]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/62 Establishing a time schedule for servicing the requests

Abstract

An information processing apparatus includes a communication section, a calculator, and a sender. The communication section communicates with a processing providing apparatus which utilizes a different amount of resource in accordance with a load of processing to be performed on data. The calculator calculates an amount of resource to be utilized for performing processing on the data by the processing providing apparatus, at plural time points corresponding to different steps of processing performed by the information processing apparatus before sending the data to the processing providing apparatus. The sender sends a request to get or release the resource based on the amount of resource calculated by the calculator to the processing providing apparatus via the communication section.

Claims

1. An information processing apparatus comprising:

a communication section that communicates with a processing providing apparatus which utilizes a different amount of resource in accordance with a load of processing to be performed on data;

a calculator that calculates an amount of resource to be utilized for performing processing on the data by the processing providing apparatus, at a plurality of time points corresponding to different steps of processing performed by the information processing apparatus before sending the data to the processing providing apparatus; and

a sender that sends a request to get or release the resource based on the amount of resource calculated by the calculator to the processing providing apparatus via the communication section.

2. The information processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the sender sends a request to get or release the resource to the processing providing apparatus every time the amount of resource is calculated.

3. The information processing apparatus according to claim 2, wherein, upon receiving an instruction to perform processing on the data, the calculator calculates the amount of resource in accordance with the type of processing to be performed on the data.

4. The information processing apparatus according to claim 2, wherein, upon receiving a setting of a parameter used for performing processing on the data, the calculator calculates the amount of resource in accordance with the parameter.

5. The information processing apparatus according to claim 2, further comprising:

an obtaining section that obtains data to be subjected to the processing; and

an estimating section that estimates an amount of data to be obtained by the obtaining section before the obtaining section finishes obtaining the data,

wherein, upon estimating the amount of data by the estimating section, the calculator calculates the amount of resource in accordance with the estimated amount of data.

6. The information processing apparatus according to claim 2, further comprising:

an obtaining section that obtains data to be subjected to the processing,

wherein, every time an amount of data which is being obtained by the obtaining section exceeds a predetermined value, the calculator calculates the amount of resource in accordance with the predetermined value.

7. The information processing apparatus according to claim 2, further comprising:

an obtaining section that obtains data to be subjected to the processing,

wherein, upon obtaining the data by the obtaining section, the calculator calculates the amount of resource in accordance with an amount of data obtained by the obtaining section.

8. The information processing apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising:

a detector that detects an occurrence of an event which hampers processing performed on the data from being started after a request to get the resource has been sent by the sender,

wherein, upon detecting an occurrence of an event which hampers processing performed on the data from being started by the detector, the sender sends a request to release the resource to the processing providing apparatus.

9. The information processing apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising:

a detector that detects that an operation for starting to perform processing on the data has stopped after a request to get the resource has been sent by the sender,

wherein, upon detecting by the detector that an operation for starting to perform processing on the data has stopped, the sender sends a request to release the resource to the processing providing apparatus.

10. The information processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein:

the communication section obtains, as a response to a request to get the resource, information indicating whether or not the resource has been got from the processing providing apparatus; and

if the information obtained by the communication section indicates that the resource has not been got, the sender sends a request to get the resource to the processing providing apparatus again.

11. The information processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein:

the communication section obtains, as a response to a request to get the resource, information indicating an available amount of resource if the resource has not been got from the processing providing apparatus; and

if the available amount of resource indicated by the information obtained by the communication section is equal to or greater than a minimum amount of resource to be utilized for performing processing on the data, the sender sends a request to get the available amount of resource indicated by the information to the processing providing apparatus.

12. An information processing system comprising:

an information processing apparatus; and

a processing providing apparatus which utilizes a different amount of resource in accordance with a load of processing to be performed on data,

the information processing apparatus including

a first communication section that communicates with the processing providing apparatus,

a calculator that calculates an amount of resource to be utilized for performing processing on the data by the processing providing apparatus, at a plurality of time points corresponding to different steps of processing performed by the information processing apparatus before the data is sent to the processing providing apparatus, and

a sender that sends a request to get or release the resource based on the amount of resource calculated by the calculator to the processing providing apparatus via the communication section,

the processing providing apparatus including

a second communication section that communicates with the information processing apparatus, and

a manager that manages an amount of resource to be utilized and that gets or releases the resource in response to a request sent from the information processing apparatus before starting to perform processing on the data.

13. An information processing method comprising:

communicating with a processing providing apparatus which utilizes a different amount of resource in accordance with a load of processing to be performed on data;

calculating an amount of resource to be utilized for performing processing on the data by the processing providing apparatus, at a plurality of time points corresponding to different steps of processing performed by an information processing apparatus before sending the data to the processing providing apparatus; and

sending a request to get or release the resource based on the calculated amount of resource to the processing providing apparatus.

14. A non-transitory computer readable medium storing a program causing a computer to execute a process, the process comprising:

communicating with a processing providing apparatus which utilizes a different amount of resource in accordance with a load of processing to be performed on data;

calculating an amount of resource to be utilized for performing processing on the data by the processing providing apparatus, at a plurality of time points corresponding to different steps of processing performed by an information processing apparatus before sending the data to the processing providing apparatus; and

sending a request to get or release the resource based on the calculated amount of resource to the processing providing apparatus.