Management device, management method, and recording medium for synchronizing information from management devices

• US 8,370,469 B2
• Filed: 09/11/2009
• Issued: 02/05/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 09/17/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Ricoh Company Limited
• Original Assignee: Ricoh Company Limited
• Inventors: Wang, Weibo
• Primary Examiner(s): BLAIR, DOUGLAS B
• Application Number:
  US12/585,320
• Publication Number:
  US 20100070629A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,243 Days
• Field of Search: 709/220, 709/221, 709/222, 709/248, 709/224, 714/5.1
• US Class Current: 709/222
• CPC Class Codes: G03G 15/5079 for maintenance
• CPC Class Codes: G03G 15/55 Self-diagnostics; Malfunction or lifetime display
• CPC Class Codes: G03G 15/553 Monitoring or warning means for exhaustion or lifetime end of consumables, e.g. indication of insufficient copy sheet quantity for a job
• CPC Class Codes: G03G 2215/00109 Remote control of apparatus, e.g. by a host
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/14 Multichannel or multilink protocols

Abstract

A first acquisition unit acquires an event notification from an MFP and updates first device-status information. A transmission unit transmits the event notification and first reference-destination information. A switching unit switches a first access to the first reference-destination information to a second access to second reference-destination information. A second acquisition unit issues an acquisition request at a first interval, issues an acquisition request at a second interval in response to the event notification, acquires the second device-status information, and update the first device-status information.

Claims

1. A management device configured to be connected to an electronic device and a first terminal through traversing a first network, the management device configured to be connected to a remote management device, the remote management device connected to a second network and the management device connected to the remote management device by traversing the first network and a third network to access the second network, the remote management device being connected to a second terminal through the second network, the management device comprising:

a storage unit configured to store therein management item information indicating a management item of the electronic device, first device-status information indicating a device status managed by the management device using the management item, management destination information indicating a management destination of the management item, first reference-destination information indicating a reference destination of the first device-status information, and second reference-destination information indicating a reference destination of second device-status information indicating a device status managed by the remote management device using the management item, all of which are associated with each other;

a first acquisition unit configured to acquire an event notification of occurrence of an event that changes the device status managed by the management item from the electronic device, and updates the first device-status information;

a transmission unit configured to transmit the event notification and the first reference-destination information to the first terminal and also transmits the event notification to the remote management device when the management destination information indicates the management device and the remote management device as management destinations;

a switching unit configured to switch an access to the first reference-destination information to an access to the second reference-destination information upon accepting the access from the first terminal to the first reference-destination information before reference-inhibition instruction information indicating an instruction to inhibit reference to the first device-status information is acquired from the remote management device; and

a second acquisition unit configured to issue an acquisition request to the remote management device at a first interval, issues an acquisition request to the remote management device at a second interval shorter than the first interval in response to the transmission from the transmission unit to the first terminal and the remote management device, acquires the reference-inhibition instruction information when the remote management device accepts the access from the second terminal to the second reference-destination information, and acquires the second device-status information updated in response to reception of recovery instruction information when the remote management device receives the recovery instruction information for recovering a device status from the first terminal, to thereby update the first device-status information.

2. The management device according to claim 1, wherein the first device-status information and the second device-status information include attached-device information used to manage device statuses,

the storage unit is further configured to store therein type information indicating types of the attached-device information associated with each other,

the first acquisition unit is configured to acquire the attached-device information of a type indicated by the type information from the electronic device upon accepting the access from the first terminal to the first reference-destination information before the reference-inhibition instruction information is acquired from the remote management device,

the transmission unit is configured to transmit acquired attached-device information to the remote management device, and

a first receiver of the remote management device is configured to receive the attached-device information from the management device and updates the second device-status information.

3. The management device according to claim 2, wherein the first acquisition unit is configured to acquire the event notification and the attached-device information from the electronic device using a protocol according to the management item.

4. The management device according to claim 1, wherein the second acquisition unit is configured to issue an acquisition request to the remote management device through polling.

5. The management device according to claim 1, further comprising a changing unit configured to change at least one of a management destination indicated by the management destination information, a reference destination indicated by the second reference-destination information, and a type indicated by the type information, according to a request from the first terminal or from the remote management device.

6. The management device according to claim 5, wherein the changing unit is configured to change access right in association with the change of at least one of the management destination indicated by the management destination information, the reference destination indicated by the second reference-destination information, and the type indicated by the type information.

7. The management device according to claim 1, wherein the first reference-destination information is a uniform resource locator (URL) of the management device, and the second reference-destination information is a URL of the remote management device.

8. A management method implemented by a management system, the management system including

a management device connected to an electronic device and a first terminal through a first network;

and

a remote management device connected to a second terminal through a second network and also connected to the first network through the second network and a third network, wherein

the management device includes a storage unit configured to store therein management item information indicating a management item of the electronic device, first device-status information indicating a device status managed by the management device using the management item, management destination information indicating a management destination of the management item, first reference-destination information indicating a reference destination of the first device-status information, and second reference-destination information indicating a reference destination of second device-status information for a device status managed by the remote management device using the management item, all of which are associated with each other,

the management method comprises;

acquiring an event notification of occurrence of an event that changes the device status managed by the management item from the electronic device, and updating the first device-status information;

transmitting the event notification and the first reference-destination information to the first terminal and also transmitting the event notification to the remote management device when the management destination information indicates the management device and the remote management device as management destinations;

switching an access to the first reference-destination information to an access to the second reference-destination information when the access from the first terminal to the first reference-destination information is accepted before reference-inhibition instruction information indicating an instruction to inhibit reference to the first device-status information is acquired from the remote management device; and

issuing an acquisition request to the remote management device at a first interval, issuing an acquisition request to the remote management device at a second interval shorter than the first interval in response to the transmission from the transmission unit to the first terminal and the remote management device, acquiring the reference-inhibition instruction information, acquiring the second device-status information, and thereby updating the first device-status information,

the remote management device includes

a storage unit configured to store therein management item information indicating a management item of the electronic device, the second device-status information, and the second reference-destination information, which are associated with each other, and

the management method further comprises;

receiving the event notification from the management device and updating the second device-status information;

transmitting the event notification and the second reference-destination information to the second terminal;

transmitting a device status indicated by the second device-status information to the first terminal in response to being switched to the access to the second reference-destination information by the management device;

receiving recovery instruction information for recovering the device status from the first terminal and updating the second device-status information; and

transmitting the second device-status information to the management device according to the acquisition request received therefrom, and also transmitting the reference-inhibition instruction information to the management device when an access from the second terminal to the second reference-destination information is accepted.

9. A non-transitory computer-readable recording medium configured to store therein a management program causing a computer to execute a management method implemented by a management device that is connected to an electronic device and to a first terminal through a first network and is connected to a remote management device through a second network, a third network, and the first network, the remote management device being connected to a second terminal through the second network, wherein

the management device includes

a storage unit configured to store therein management item information indicating a management item of the electronic device, first device-status information indicating a device status managed by the management device using the management item, management destination information indicating a management destination of the management item, first reference-destination information indicating a reference destination of the first device-status information, and second reference-destination information indicating a reference destination of second device-status information for a device status managed by the remote management device using the management item, all of which are associated with each other,

the management method comprises:

acquiring an event notification of occurrence of an event that changes the device status managed by the management item from the electronic device, and updating the first device-status information;

transmitting the event notification and the first reference-destination information to the first terminal and also transmitting the event notification to the remote management device when the management destination information indicates the management device and the remote management device as management destinations;

switching an access to the first reference-destination information to an access to the second reference-destination information when the access from the first terminal to the first reference-destination information is accepted before reference-inhibition instruction information indicating an instruction to inhibit reference to the first device-status information is acquired from the remote management device; and

issuing an acquisition request to the remote management device at a first interval, issuing an acquisition request to the remote management device at a second interval shorter than the first interval in response to the transmission from the transmission unit to the first terminal and the remote management device, acquiring the reference-inhibition instruction information when the remote management device accepts the access from the second terminal to the second reference-destination information, and acquiring the second device-status information updated in response to reception of recovery instruction information when the remote management device receives the recovery instruction information for recovering the device status from the first terminal, to thereby update the first device-status information.