System and method for accessing information from a remote device and providing the information to a client workstation

• US 6,112,246 A
• Filed: 10/22/1998
• Issued: 08/29/2000
• Est. Priority Date: 10/22/1998
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: MEC Management, LLC (Three Affiliated Tribes of the Fort Berthold Reservation, North Dakota)
• Original Assignee: Mark T. Horbal, Randal J. King
• Inventors: Horbal, Mark T., King, Randal J.
• Primary Examiner(s): Maung, Zarni
• Application Number:
  US09/176,993
• Time in Patent Office: 677 Days
• Field of Search: 364/131, 364/138, 345/333-335, 709/203, 709/217, 709/219, 709/223, 709/224, 709/230
• US Class Current: 709/230
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/955 using information identifiers, e.g. uniform resource locators [URL]
• 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 67/34 involving the movement of software or configuration parameters network booting or remote initial program loading [RIPL] G06F9/4416
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/329 in the application layer [OSI layer 7]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/40 Network security protocols

Abstract

A micro-server adapted to be embedded into a piece of industrial machinery, an automobile, a consumer product, and the like, for publishing information, possibly in the form of web pages, about the device into which the micro-server is embedded or with which it is associated and/or for controlling a micro-server equipped device from a possibly remote client. The information may be published such that it is accessible using a standard web-browser. Other suitable protocols could also be used. The micro-server is capable of interfacing with a device to access information from the device, such as control or maintenance information. The micro-server can then organize and format that information compatible with a communication protocol in preparation for publishing the information. The micro-server conveniently abstracts from the first device the details of the communication protocol used to publish the information.

Claims

1. A system for providing information about a remote device to a client workstation, the system comprising:

a micro-server for transmitting the information to the client workstation, the micro-server defining an application programming interface for interfacing with the remote device to access the information from the remote device and for abstracting the details of transmitting the information to the client workstation, the remote device initializing the micro-server by providing, via a function call defined by the application programming interface, at least one pointer to at least one callback function for accessing the information, the micro-server accessing the information by calling the at least one callback function.

2. The system of claim 1 wherein the micro-server comprises a TCP/IP application programming interface for accessing a TCP/IP protocol stack.

3. The system of claim 1 further comprising:

a system services application programming interface for providing the micro-server with access to system services from the remote device.

4. The system of claim 1 wherein the micro-server comprises an HTTP protocol server for satisfying interactive HTTP requests from the remote client workstation.

5. The system of claim 4 wherein the micro-server comprises a synthesized HTML server for providing a dynamic copy of an HTML version of a web page served by the HTTP protocol server.

6. The system of claim 1 further comprising:

a data image for caching data from the remote device for reducing the number of application programming interface function calls made by the micro-server to access remote device information.

7. The system of claim 1 wherein the micro-server comprises:

a TCP/IP based server for satisfying TCP/IP based requests from the client workstation.

8. The system of claim 1 wherein the micro-server comprises:

a hyperlink to a website associated with the remote device.

9. The system of claim 1 wherein the micro-server comprises:

a web site associated with the remote device.

10. The system of claim 9 wherein the web site comprises:

a home page for publishing the remote device'"'"'s parametric data.

11. The system of claim 9 wherein the web site comprises:

a control page for providing authorized individuals access to the remote device'"'"'s control functions.

12. The system of claim 9 wherein the web site comprises:

a maintenance page for providing access to the remote device'"'"'s maintenance data.

13. The system of claim 12 wherein the maintenance page comprises:

a hyperlink to online maintenance documentation.

14. The system of claim 9 wherein the web site comprises:

a maintenance page for providing access to the remote device'"'"'s maintenance functions.

15. The system of claim 9 wherein the web site comprises:

an administration page for allowing authorized individuals to set operating characteristics of the remote device.

16. The system of claim 9 wherein the web site comprises:

a discover page for supplying information to the client workstation during automatic discovery.

17. The system of claim 1 further comprising:

a default applet server for providing default applets to the client workstation for interfacing with the remote device from the client workstation.

18. The system of claim 1 further comprising:

a time server for providing current time information to the system, the time information being maintained based at least in part upon universal coordinated time.

19. The system of claim 1 further comprising:

a maintenance server for providing non-volatile storage for the remote device'"'"'s maintenance records, the non-volatile storage being hyperlinked from the remote device.

20. The system of claim 1 further comprising:

an auto-discovery and view server for automatically

detecting a micro-server-enabled device being coupled to an interface and

publishing micro-server-enabled device data to the client workstation.

21. The system of claim 1 further comprising:

a local applet server for retrieving device-specific applets from a server associated with the remote device and for making the applets available to the client workstation.

22. The system of claim 1 further comprising:

a browser for interacting with the remote device.

23. The system of claim 1 further comprising:

a client-side application programming interface for providing the client workstation with a software interface to the remote device.

24. The system of claim 1 wherein at least a portion of the information is organized as addressable variables.

25. A remote device capable of providing information about itself to a client workstation, the remote device comprising:

a micro-server for transmitting the information to the client workstation while abstracting communication protocol details from the remote device'"'"'s control software;

an application programming interface for providing an interface between the remote device'"'"'s control software and the micro-server, the control software initializing the micro-server by providing, via a function call defined by the application programming interface, at least one pointer to at least one callback function for accessing the information, the micro-server accessing the information by calling the at least one callback function;

a hardware Ethernet interface; and

a TCP/IP protocol stack for interfacing between the micro-server and the hardware Ethernet interface.

26. The remote device of claim 25 further comprising:

a computer capable of supporting a standard operating system environment.

27. A micro-circuit board for providing information about a remote device to a client workstation, the micro-circuit board comprising:

a micro-server for transmitting the information to the client workstation while abstracting communication protocol programming details from the remote device'"'"'s control software;

an application programming interface for providing an interface between the remote device'"'"'s control software and the micro-server, the control software initializing the micro-server by providing, via a function call defined by the application programming interface, at least one pointer to at least one callback function for accessing the information the micro-server accessing the information by calling the at least one callback function;

a hardware Ethernet interface; and

a TCP/IP protocol stack for interfacing between the micro-server and the hardware Ethernet interface.

28. A system for providing information about a remote device to a client workstation, the system comprising:

a first processor for running the remote device'"'"'s control software and a first side of an application programming interface ("API");

a second processor for running micro-server software and abstracting communication protocol details from the first processor by running a second side of the API, the control software initializing the micro-server by providing, via a function call defined by the API, at least one pointer to at least one callback function for accessing the information, the micro-server accessing the information by calling the at least one callback function and transmitting the information to the client workstation, the second processor accessing a TCP/IP stack to interface with the hardware Ethernet interface; and

a hardware interface between the first processor and the second processor.

29. A system for providing information about a remote device to a client workstation, the system comprising:

a processor for running remote device control software and a first side of an application programming interface ("API"), the processor being mounted on a PC circuit board, the PC circuit board being insertable into a computer;

a computer for abstracting communication protocol details from the processor by running micro-server software including a second side of the API, the control software initializing the micro-server by providing, via a function call defined by an application programming interface, at least one pointer to at least one callback function for accessing the information, the micro-server accessing the information by calling the at least one callback function and transmitting the information to the client workstation, the computer having a hardware Ethernet interface and a TCP/IP stack for interfacing with the hardware Ethernet interface; and

a hardware interface between the processor and the computer.

30. A method for providing information about a remote device to a client workstation comprising the steps of:

providing to a micro-server, via a function call defined by an application programming interface, at least one pointer to at least one callback function;

accessing the information from the first device via the at least one callback function;

organizing the information into a format compatible with a communication protocol in preparation for making the information available to the client workstation;

making the information available to the client workstation; and

abstracting the communication protocol from the remote device.

31. A system for accessing remote device data and communicating the data to a client workstation, the system comprising:

a remote device having an original equipment manufacturer ("OEM") software component for controlling operation of the remote device and a micro-server software component;

the micro-server software component for transmitting the remote device data to the client workstation, the micro-server software component having an original equipment manufacturer application programming interface ("OEM API") for allowing the OEM software to initialize the micro-server software, the initialization including the OEM software providing one or more callback functions to the micro-server software component to allow the micro-server software component to access OEM software component data through one or more functions defined by the OEM API, the OEM API abstracting micro-server software component implementation of networking protocol details from the OEM software component.

32. The system of claim 31 wherein the micro-server software component comprises non-blocking threads for returning processor control to the OEM software component without delays associated waiting for external events to occur.

33. The system of claim 31 wherein the micro-server software component is a binary software library linked to the OEM application.

34. The system of claim 31 wherein the micro-server software component includes a client-side refresh mode of operation that automatically updates a page displayed at the client workstation at fixed time intervals.

35. The system of claim 31 wherein the micro-server software component comprises an OEM data cache component for caching OEM data accessed by the micro-server software component thereby reducing overhead associated with frequent OEM API function calls.