Device information management apparatus, device information management method, and storage medium which operates during a failure

• US 8,589,534 B2
• Filed: 09/02/2008
• Issued: 11/19/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 09/13/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Ricoh Company Limited
• Original Assignee: Ricoh Company Limited
• Inventors: Sakai, Minoru, Tanaka, Yasuhiro
• Primary Examiner(s): Moore, Ian N
• Assistant Examiner(s): Huynh, Dung B
• Application Number:
  US12/202,746
• Publication Number:
  US 20090077231A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,904 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 709/224
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0709 in a distributed system consisting of a plurality of standalone computer nodes, e.g. clusters, client-server systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0766 Error or fault reporting or storing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1402 Saving, restoring, recovering or retrying

Abstract

A device information management apparatus for processing a report from a device management client during a failure of a transaction system is disclosed. The device information management apparatus includes a reception unit configured to receive the report from the device management client; a determining unit configured to determine whether to process the report based on an importance level of the report and a load (workload) level of the device information management apparatus; a processing unit configured to process the report if the determining unit determines to process the report; and a discarding unit configured to discard the report if the determining unit determines not to process the report.

Claims

1. A device information management apparatus for processing a report from a device management client, comprising:

a reception unit configured to receive the report from the device management client during a failure of a transaction system;

a determining unit configured to determine whether to process the report based on an importance level of the report and a load level of the device information management apparatus;

a processing unit configured to process the report if the determining unit determines to process the report; and

a discarding unit configured to discard the report if the determining unit determines not to process the report;

wherein the processing unit is configured to store the report in a storage unit if the report is a regular report and to transfer the report to an information utilization system if the report is an irregular report,

wherein the determining unit is configured to determine to process the report if the sum of the importance level and the load level is equal to or greater than a predetermined threshold and to determine not to process the report if the sum of the importance level and the load level is less than the predetermined threshold.

2. The device information management apparatus as claimed in claim 1, wherein the processing unit is configured to store the regular report in a text format in the storage unit.

3. The device information management apparatus as claimed in claim 2, further comprising:

a recovery processing unit configured to restore the regular report stored in the text format in the storage unit into the transaction system during a recovery process from the failure of the transaction system.

4. The device information management apparatus as claimed in claim 3, wherein the recovery processing unit uses a backup device for data recovery.

5. The device information management apparatus as claimed in claim 1, wherein the determining unit is configured to determine the importance level based on a list where service types of reports are associated with importance levels.

6. The device information management apparatus as claimed in claim 1, wherein the discarding unit discards reports that have at least one of an importance level below a first predetermined threshold and an urgency level below a second predetermined threshold.

7. The device information management apparatus as claimed in claim 1, wherein the processing unit processes only reports having an importance level above a first predetermined threshold when the load level of the device information management apparatus is above a second predetermined threshold and processes both reports having an importance level above the first predetermined threshold and reports having an importance level below the first predetermined threshold when the load level of the device information management apparatus is below the second predetermined threshold.

8. The device information management apparatus as claimed in claim 1, wherein the regular report reports information on a regular basis, and the irregular report reports information regarding an event each time the event occurs.

9. A method of processing a report from a device management client by a device information management apparatus during a failure of a transaction system, comprising the steps of:

receiving the report from the device management client during the failure of the transaction system;

determining whether to process the report based on an importance level of the report and a load level of the device information management apparatus;

processing the report if it is determined to process the report;

discarding the report if it is determined not to process the report;

storing the report in a storage unit, when the report is a regular report; and

transferring the report to an information utilization system, when the report is an irregular report,

wherein the determining determines to process the report if the sum of the importance level and the load level is equal to or greater than a predetermined threshold and to determine not to process the report if the sum of the importance level and the load level is less than the predetermined threshold.

10. The method of claim 9, further comprising:

restoring the report during a recovery process from the failure of the transaction system, when the report is a regular report.

11. The method of claim 9, further comprising:

during a time when the transaction system is not failing, equally distributing reports to a plurality of application servers, by a load balancer;

during a recovery process from the failure of the transaction system, distributing reports to the device information management apparatus, by a load balancer.

12. The method of claim 9, further comprising the steps of, performed during a time when the transaction system is functioning properly and in a non-failed mode, and performed by a plurality of application servers:

managing information relating to a plurality of devices, and

executing business logic to provide services,

wherein the business logic further includes

measuring usage using a counter.

13. The method of claim 9,

wherein each report includes at least a service type including a service ID and a class identifier, a client ID for identifying a device management client, date and time indicating when the report was sent, and service-related data.

14. A non-transitory storage medium having program code embodied therein for causing a computer to perform a method of processing a report from a device management client during a failure of a transaction system, the method comprising the steps of:

receiving the report from the device management client during the failure of the transaction system;

determining whether to process the report based on an importance level of the report and a load level of the computer;

processing the report if it is determined to process the report;

discarding the report if it is determined not to process the report;

storing the report in a storage unit, when the report is a regular report; and

transferring the report to an information utilization system, when the report is an irregular report,

wherein the determining determines to process the report if the sum of the importance level and the load level is equal to or greater than a predetermined threshold and to determine not to process the report if the sum of the importance level and the load level is less than the predetermined threshold.