Device management using a dedicated management interface

• US 8,539,123 B2
• Filed: 10/06/2011
• Issued: 09/17/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 10/06/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Honeywell International Inc.
• Original Assignee: Honeywell International Inc.
• Inventors: Caballero, Aldo
• Primary Examiner(s): SUN, SCOTT C
• Application Number:
  US13/267,338
• Publication Number:
  US 20130091311A1
• Time in Patent Office: 712 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 710/63
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 13/10 Program control for peripheral devices G06F13/14 - G06F13/42 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 13/102 where the programme performs an interfacing function, e.g. device driver G06F13/105 takes precedence; scheduling within device drivers G06F9/52; contention policies within device drivers G06F9/4881
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 13/385 for adaptation of a particular data processing system to different peripheral devices
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 13/4221 being an input/output bus, e.g. ISA bus, EISA bus, PCI bus, SCSI bus

Abstract

Management of data communication between a peripheral device and host computer system is provided. A peripheral device exposes to a host computer system multiple interfaces for data communication between the peripheral device and the host computer system. The multiple interfaces are exposed over a single physical interface between the peripheral device and the host computer system, for communicating data between the peripheral device and multiple applications executing on the host computer system. The multiple interfaces can include a dedicated management interface facilitating management of the peripheral device by a management application of the multiple applications executing on the host computer system.

Claims

1. A method for managing data communication between a peripheral device and a host computer system, the method comprising:

exposing to the host computer system, by a processor of the peripheral device, multiple interfaces for data communication between the peripheral device and the host computer system, the multiple interfaces being exposed over a single physical interface between the peripheral device and the host computer system, the multiple interfaces for communicating data between the peripheral device and multiple applications executing on the host computer system, wherein the multiple interfaces comprise a dedicated management interface facilitating management of the peripheral device by a management application of the multiple applications executing on the host computer system.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the multiple interfaces further comprise a line of business interface for data communication between the peripheral device and a line of business application of the multiple applications, and wherein the dedicated management interface and the line of business interface are exposed separately to the host computer system to facilitate peripheral device management across the dedicated management interface in parallel with data collection across the line of business interface by the line of business application.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the single physical interface comprises a Universal Serial Bus interface.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the peripheral device behaves as a Universal Serial Bus composite device exposing the multiple interfaces responsive to a Universal Serial Bus host enumeration request.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the dedicated management interface comprises a Universal Serial Bus Human Interface Device class interface, wherein the peripheral device exposes the Universal Serial Bus Human Interface Device class interface as having a non-standard configuration so as to be ignored by a line of business application of the multiple applications executing on the host computer system.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the non-standard configuration comprises a non-standard usage page number of the Universal Serial Bus Human Interface Device class interface.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising receiving commands by the peripheral device from the host computer system across the multiple interfaces and responding to the received commands, wherein the peripheral device, in responding to a command, responds to the command across a same interface of the multiple interfaces through which the command was received from the host computer.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the peripheral device is configured to give priority to one interface of the multiple interfaces, responsive to contemporaneously receiving more than one command across more than one interface of the multiple interfaces.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein priority is given to a data collection interface of the multiple interfaces over the dedicated management interface of the multiple interfaces, the data collection interface collecting barcode data for provision to a line of business application of the multiple applications executing on the host computer system.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising sending one or more notifications over the dedicated management interface to the host computer system, wherein the one or more notifications are not made available across other interfaces of the multiple interfaces.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the one or more notifications comprise bar code reading statistics.

12. The method of claim 10, wherein the one or more notifications comprise a low battery notification.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein the peripheral device is selectably configurable to exclusively use of one interface of the multiple interfaces to facilitate performance of at least one of:

a firmware upgrade, or a peripheral device reconfiguration.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein exclusive use of one interface of the multiple interfaces comprises one of temporarily blocking requests through other interfaces of the multiple interfaces through a period of exclusive use of the one interface, or temporarily queuing requests through other interfaces of the multiple interfaces through a period of exclusive use of the one interface.

15. The method of claim 1, wherein the peripheral device is selectably configurable to expose any one or more of the multiple interfaces to the host computer system.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein the peripheral device is selectably configurable to expose only the dedicated management interface to facilitate performance of at least one of:

a firmware upgrade, or a peripheral device reconfiguration.

17. The method of claim 1, wherein the peripheral device is configurable to recognize commands received through the dedicated management interface as being valid, wherein the commands are not recognized as being valid if received through other interfaces of the multiple interfaces.

18. The method of claim 1, wherein the single physical interface comprises at least one of:

a Bluetooth interface, a WiFi interface, or a ZigBee interface.

19. The method of claim 1, wherein the peripheral device comprises an encoded information reading device configured to output a decoded message, wherein data communicated between the peripheral device and the host computer system comprises the decoded message and wherein the decoded message is communicated to a line of business application of the multiple applications executing on the host computer system.