Method And System For Managing Remote Clients In A Network Constituted By A Central Server Which Is Linked To Remote Clients

Method And System For Managing Remote Clients In A Network Constituted By A Central Server Which Is Linked To Remote Clients

The present invention relates generally to exchanging information over a network.

Multicast networks allow messages to be sent to clients in a target group that constitute a subset of all networked clients. In general, multicasting is performed by including, for example, in the header, the addresses of all target clients addressed.

A broadcast network operator uses the headend or server of a multicast network to control a group or individual broadcast receiver client platform for the purpose of initiating a network management session. These sessions are used for the purpose of uploading network management information to a server at the head end. This allows network operators to manage the exchange of network management information.

Accordingly, there is a need for a method that enables the exchange of information between a client and a server, headend or broadcast network operator.

1 is a simplified schematic diagram of an embodiment of the present invention;

Fig. 2 is a flowchart of software residing on the client shown in Fig. 1, in accordance with one embodiment of the present invention;

3 is a flowchart of software residing on a server or headend according to an embodiment of the present invention;

Fig. 4 is a flowchart of software residing on the client shown in Fig. 1, in accordance with another embodiment of the present invention;

5 is a flowchart of software residing on a server or headend according to another embodiment of the present invention;

Fig. 6 is a flowchart of software residing on the client shown in Fig. 1, according to another embodiment of the present invention;

7 is a flowchart of software residing on a server or headend according to another embodiment of the present invention.

Referring to Figure 1, a network includes at least one server, a headend or network operator 10 and a plurality of clients 12 (only one is shown). The server 10 is coupled to a plurality of clients (including the clients 12) through a distributed system based on a wired or wireless, broadcast system. Examples of such networks include television distribution networks such as digital video broadcasting systems.

In one embodiment of the present invention, server 10 may communicate with client 12 via transport 14 . Transport 14 may be according to an analog or digital broadcasting system. By way of example, the transport 14 may be according to Digital Video Broadcast (DVB); Network-dependent protocol, ETS 300802, November 1997, available from Balbon, France, European Telecommunications Standards Association. Transport 14 may be a satellite, cable or radio broadcasting system.

According to an embodiment of the present invention, the client 12 recognizes messages directed to the client 12 individually from the server 10 , or, in another embodiment, another client 12 . Bandwidth can be maintained by addressing messages to a group of clients without the need to insert a separate identifier for each of a number of addressed clients in the header.

Additionally, the client 12 may include one or more addressable agents 44 , 45 , 46 , 48 individually addressable by a remote unit such as the server 10 . Furthermore, by providing addressable agents 44,45,46,47 within any client 12, messages requiring special or special handling can be addressed to specific agents residing on the client 12 for proper processing. have.

The server 10 includes a network management command and control server 16 . The server 16 manages the data set from the client 12 . The server 16 sends a message including an individual service identifier (eg, service_id=0x02). The server 10 also includes an instant messaging or short message service (SMS) server 18, which also sends messages with different service identifiers (eg service_id=0x04).

Additionally, a client disk management server 20 may also be provided. The client disk management server 20 may transmit a message including one or more individual service identifiers (eg, service_id=0x01). In some cases, various messages may be issued by the client disk management server 20 to initiate certain actions on the client's storage device or disk driver 43 . For example, a separate service identifier may be used, for example, for partition creation, partition deletion, or partition modification commands.

The data management session control server 21 is responsible for handling the uploading of the uniquely identifiable data set on the client via the available return channel connection 47 . This is an important capability that allows network operators to manage the mining of data and the scalability of the associated servers. One-way message service types and message identifiers can be used with Data Management Session Control (DMSC) to manage data management sessions for groups of clients or individual clients. This group management is natively supported by the one-way messaging service by the strategic assignment of client identifiers to all broadcast receiving clients within the network managed by the server 10 .

The data management session control server 21 sends a message containing one or more individual service identifiers (eg, service_id=0x03). The server 21 creates the DMSC message data structure, the application-private data and data size, the individual client identifier, the group flag as a Boolean variable specifying whether the client identifier is a group mask or an individual client identifier, the service for the DMSC service. It passes data and information, such as identifier values, and application-private message identifiers, to the one-way messaging server 22 .

According to one embodiment of the present invention, the server 10 may implement a one-way messaging system. In a one-way messaging system, the server 10 may send a message to multiple clients that are unable to respond in some way. One embodiment of such a network is a direct-to-home (DTH) broadcast network that conforms to the DVB protocol. The network may use a connection-oriented communication protocol or a real-time connectionless protocol in two embodiments. For example, there are many applications of one-way messaging from server to client, such as instant messaging, command, control, notification, and signaling. In other cases, the network may be, for example, a bidirectional network with an Internet Protocol (IP) multicast backbone.

In one embodiment of the present invention, server 10 may include a one-way messaging server (UMS) 22 coupled to servers 16,18,20,21 for generating messages in a suitable format. The messages sent by the UMS server 22 may include messages originally generated by one of the servers 16 , 18 , 20 , 21 . The UMS server 22 may be coupled to an Internet protocol multicast module 24 that puts the message in an appropriate multicast protocol format. Finally, the DVB multi-protocol encapsulation (MPE) 26 is coupled to the Internet protocol multicast module 24 . MPE is described in the specification for service information (SI) in DVB systems (EN 300 468 V1.3.1 1998-02) and the DVB specification for data broadcast (EN 301 192), which can be obtained from ETS. The output of the DVB MPE 26 and a DVB-service information (SI) generator 28 are coupled to the transport 14 . Service information is digital data describing the delivery system, content and scheduling/timing of broadcast data streams.

At the client 12 , the stream from the DVB-SI generator 28 is coupled to a DVB-SI receiver 40 and a service acquisition module 38 . The service acquisition module 38 extracts the program identifier (PID) and provides it to the DVB demultiplexer 32 . The tuner 30 tunes the client 12 to the appropriate channel corresponding to the extracted program identifier.

The message from the DVB MPE 26 is provided to the DVB MPE receiver 42 . Receiver 42 communicates with IP multicast module 40 and one-way messaging server 38 . The server 38 breaks down the message to determine if the service identifier is included in the data stream. If so, the message is forwarded to the appropriate agent that is destined to receive the message with the particular service identifier.

The disk management agent 44 is coupled to the disk drive controller 47 and sequentially coupled to the storage device 43 , for example a hard disk drive. The disk management agent 44 may be addressed by the client disk management server 20 as a message recipient. The disk management agent 44 will cause the process to be performed through the controller 47 which in turn controls the use of the storage device 43 . This control includes determining what information to store on storage device 43 and how that information is stored on storage device 43 .

In one embodiment of the invention, the network management command and control server 16 provides a specific message identifier that causes the message to be received by the network management session management agent 48 tuned to the specific service identifier. Similarly, a message from the instant messaging server 18 may include a service identifier that allows the message to be forwarded to the agent 48 of the client 12 . As such, messages from the data management session control server 21 have appropriate identifiers that cause them to branch to the data management session control agent 45 of the client 12 .

The server 10 includes a storage 25 that stores software 134 , 70 , 102 that controls the operation of the server 22 . As such, the server 38 on the client 12 is coupled to a storage device 43 that stores software 50, 82, 114 that controls the operation of the server 38. The servers 22, 38 also include a processor It is a base system.

Referring to Figure 2, software 50 on client 12 first receives a one-way messaging server address and port from server 10. Client 12 is also assigned a client identifier as indicated in block 52 . Thus, an Internet protocol multicast system is established, and each client has a UMS address and port as well as a specific client identifier assigned by the server 10 . In some embodiments, server 10 may dynamically adjust client identifiers and addresses and ports to enable communication of particular messages, groups of messages, or types of messages to particular clients in a dynamic and reconfigurable manner.

Upon receiving that address, port and client identifier, the client 12 receiver joins the multicast group and expects a message specifically addressed to it or to any group to which the client 12 belongs, as shown in block 54 .

The disk management agent 44 registers its service identifier with the UMS server 38 as shown in block 56 . When the UMS server 38 receives a packet with a UMS message, as shown in block 58, it determines whether a particular client 12 is destined to be a recipient, as indicated by diamond 60. Otherwise, the message is discarded as indicated in block 62 .

However, if the particular client 12 is the intended recipient, the server 38 checks the service identifier of the message and directs the message to the appropriate agent 44,46,48, as indicated in block 64. The message is then forwarded to the appropriate agent 44 as indicated in block 66 . At agent 44, as indicated at block 68, the information is analyzed and moved to the appropriate process for processing.

For example, when addressed, the disk management agent 44 sends the appropriate command to the controller 47 for relaying to the storage device 43 . Depending on the service identifier accompanying the message, the agent 44 provides an appropriately translated command to the controller 47, such as a command to create a partition, delete a partition or modify a partition. Each of these commands is given a separate service identifier value such as 0x03, 0x04, 0x05. The disk management agent 44 will convert the message with the service identifier value into a format suitable for the controller 47 based on the message received from the client disk management server 20 . For example, for a message containing the service identifier value 0x03, the agent 44 issues a command to the controller to partition the storage device 43 .

On the server side, as shown in Figure 3, the network software 70 begins by assigning a multicast address and port for a one-way messaging service to a plurality of clients as indicated in block 72. The server may assign a client identifier in a dynamic and reconfigurable manner. The address, port and client identifier are then sent to the client as indicated in block 74 .

The disk management server 20 then creates a data structure and passes this data structure to the server 22 as indicated in block 76 . Server 22 generates a one-way message, assigns a client value, sets a group flag, and copies the private data in the private bytes of the message, as indicated in block 78 . More specifically, a specific client identifier may be assigned. The client identifier may be a specific pre-assigned client identifier, or, as an example, may be zero when multiple clients are targeted. The group flag is a Boolean value that specifies whether the client identifier is a group mask or a specific identifier. The group mask is an identifier that identifies a subset of clients 12 on the network. The subset may include a plurality of clients that are less than the total number of addressable clients.

As one example of a one-way message header, the message includes numerous variables including group_mask, service_id, version_id, message_id, and private_data_byte. Group_mask is one embodiment of the present invention. In an example, it contains 64 bits, service_id contains 8 bits, version_id contains 16 bits, message_id contains 8 bits, and private_data_byte contains 8 bits. version_id is the version of the one-way messaging protocol and is initially set to zero. Service_id is a service identifier of 0x02 for an instant messaging service as an example. Advantageously, the message size does not exceed 1024 bytes to eliminate potential datagram fragmentation. The group_filter is used in conjunction with the client_id field to limit the size of the private data bytes required by the application. Each of the header items is an unsingned integer most significant bit first according to the DVB specification, except for private_data_bytes containing the bit string, left bit first (bslbf) identifier. , uimsbf) identifiers.

As indicated in block 80, the message is sent to all clients 12 on the network. Each client decides whether a message is destined for that client. The client 12 determines whether a message is a particular intended recipient by determining whether it is addressed to the client 12's client identifier. For example, using a logical AND operation between the message identifier and the client identifier, the client 12 determines whether the client 12 is within the group of clients addressed by the server 10 .

In one embodiment of the invention, individual groups of users receive a common client identifier element. Thus, multiple clients whose owner has signed the enhanced service may include a common code portion in their client identifiers. When a message is received that includes a common code portion in the client identifier, each of those clients accepts the message. As such, clients of a particular area of particular interest or otherwise identifiable clients will be given a unique prefix/suffix or identifier code portion. The code part will be logically ANDed with the group_mask to determine if a particular client is a member of the targeted group.

The management message header contains fields for addressing the disk management agent 44, such as the Volume_Name_Length field providing bytes, volume, name, and length for the relative volume of the storage device 45 in the form of a hard disk drive. also includes. In one embodiment of the present invention, the field is 8 bits long and may have a bslbf identifier. Additionally, the volume_name_byte field provides the volume name byte to name the volume to be mounted to create a partition. In one embodiment of the present invention, this field is 8 bits long and may contain a bslbf identifier. Finally, the partition_size field provides the size of the partition to be created in bytes. This field is 32 bits in size and uses the uimsbf identifier. Of course, additional fields and additional service identifiers may be used to implement additional commands in the client storage device 45 .

In this way, the client disk management server 20, under the direction of the server or headerend 10, determines how the storage device 43 is set up and communicates to the targeted client 12 or the targeted group of clients 12. You can control how it is used. Each of the clients 12 can be individually addressed so that their storage devices 45 can be modified individually or collectively, the entire set of clients can be addressed or any subgroup of clients can be addressed collectively. can be Accordingly, one or more storage devices 43 may be selectively controlled from the server 10 .

Referring to Figure 4, software 82 on client 12 for implementing a network management session first receives a one-way messaging server address and port from server 10. The client 12 may be assigned a client identifier, as indicated in block 84 . Thus, an Internet Protocol multicast system is established and each client has a UMS address and port as well as a specific client identifier assigned by the server 10 .

Upon receiving that address, port and client identifier, as indicated in block 86, the client 12 receiver binds a multicast group and expects a message specifically addressed to it or to any group to which the client 12 belongs.

As indicated in block 88 , the data management session control agent 45 registers its service identifier with the UMS server 38 . When the UMS server 38 receives a packet with a UMS message, as indicated in block 90, it makes a check to determine if the particular client 12 is the intended recipient, as indicated by diamond 92. If not, the message is discarded as indicated in block 94.

However, if the particular client 12 is the intended recipient, then, as indicated in block 64 , the server 38 checks the message server identifier and forwards the message to the appropriate agent 45 . The message is then forwarded to the appropriate agent 45, as indicated in block 98. At agent 45, as indicated at block 100, the information is analyzed and passed to the appropriate process for processing.

The data management session control agent 45 receives the targeted message from the data management session control server 21 , and in response provides data requested by the server 21 , for example via the back channel 47 . . Thus, in one embodiment, the agent 45 sets the group_mask, service_id, version_id, message_id, message_byte_count, in turn session-id, session_host_name, session_start_time , a message having a specific syntax including a management message ( ) including a data management session message ( ) including , session_duration and data_id is received.

Session_id is a specific session identifier. server_host_name is the string host name of the data management server to establish a connection. The session_start_time is the date and time for the client 12 to establish a session. Session_Duration is the duration for which the server 21 accepts a session after the start time, providing a window of time, if necessary. Data_id is a specific identifier of a data set or information to be exchanged during a session. How to manage and allocate information and/or data of an identifier is an application secret.

Accordingly, the server 21 may initiate a message to the client 12 to cause the client 12 to initiate uploading of a specific data at a specific time. That is, the server 21 may specify a header including session_id, server_host_name, session_start_time, session_duration, and data_id, in response to the data management session control agent 45 Gathers the requested information and provides it in the requested form at the requested time.

The server 21 provides the message with other message identifiers including, for example, a session creation message, a session deletion message, and a session update message. The session delete message simply deletes the previously created session, and the session update message allows additional information to be provided to the scheduled session.

In one embodiment of the present invention, the group_mask contains 64 bits with a uimsbf identifier. Session_id contains 8 bits with uimsbf identifier. Version_id contains 16 bits with uimsbf identifier. Message_id contains 8 bits and has an identifier of 0x01. The message_byte_count contains 16 bits in the uimsbf identifier. The data management session control message () is a uimsbf identifier format and includes 8-bit syntax session_id, 64-bit session_start_time, 32-bit session_continuation, and 32-bit data_id.

On the server side, as shown in Figure 5, and as indicated in block 104, the network software 102 begins by allocating a muldcast address and port for a one-way messaging service to a plurality of clients 12. As shown in FIG. The server 10 assigns a client identifier in a dynamic and reconfigurable manner. The address, port, and client identifier are then sent to the client, as indicated in block 106 .

The data management session control server 21 then creates a data structure and passes the data structure to the server 22, as indicated in block 108 . Server 22 generates a one-way message, assigns a client value, sets a group flag, and copies the private data within the private bytes of the message, as indicated in block 110 . More specifically, a specific client identifier is assigned. The client identifier may be a specific pre-assigned client identifier, or, as an example, may be zero when multiple clients are targeted. The group flag is a Boolean value that specifies whether the client identifier is a group mask or a specific identifier. The group mask is an identifier that identifies a subset of clients 12 on the network. This subset includes a plurality of clients that are less than the total number of addressable clients.

As indicated in block 112, the message is sent to all clients 12 on the network. Each client decides whether a message is destined for that client. A client 12 determines whether a message is a particular intended recipient by determining whether it is addressed with a client identifier for that client 12 . For example, using a logical AND operation between the message identifier and the client identifier, the client 12 determines whether the client 12 is within a group of clients addressed together by the server 10 .

The network management command and control server 16 acts as a network session management agent 48 . When a message originating from an instance of server 16 is destined for agent 48 , agent 48 calls session manager 49 . The session manager provides predetermined management information in a predetermined format through the back channel 43 in an embodiment of the present invention.

A network management session generally has the purpose of uploading network management information to the server 16 . As an example, the Management Information Foundation (MIB) may be uploaded to the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) via the return channel 43 . 6, the operation of agent 48 corresponds to the operation previously described with respect to agents 44,45. That is, as indicated in block 116 , the UMS address, port, and client identifier are received, the receiver binds the multicast group and expects the message as indicated in block 118 , and as indicated in block 120 , the network session The management agent 48 registers its service identifier with the UMS receiver. As indicated in block 122, the UMS receiver receives the packet with the message.

In diamond 124, it is checked whether a specific agent 48 is the intended recipient. Otherwise, the message is discarded as indicated in block 126 . Otherwise, the receiver checks the service identifier and forwards the message to the agent 48 . Session manager 49 then schedules the session to server 16 using channel 43 .

The message format is basically the same as the format used by DMSC. However, instead of having a data management session control message (), the network management session control message () includes an information_ID field. The information_ID field is a specific identifier of the data set or information exchanged during the session. How to manage and assign information and/or data set identifiers is an application secret. For example, a particular SNMP client MIB will be identified for upload to the server if the client manages multiple MIBs.

The MIB is information on the agent known as the management information base. This information forms the basis for event reporting. The standard for MIBs is described, for example, in RFC1229 (May 1991) distributed by the Network Working Group.

Referring to Fig. 7, the operation of the network management server 16 using the software 134 corresponds to that previously described. Again, as indicated at block 136, a multicast address and port for the UMS is assigned, a client identifier is assigned, and the UMS address port and client identifier are sent to the client as indicated at block 138, and at block 140 . As indicated, the network management command control server 16 creates the data structure and passes the data to the UMS server. As indicated in block 142, the UMS server 22 generates the UM message, assigns a client value, sets the group flag, and copies the private data into the private bytes of the message. Thereafter, the message is transmitted (block 144).

At a given time, the server 16 receives scheduling information from the session manager 49 . A session is provided in which MIBs or other information is uploaded to the server via agent 48 and session manager 49 at appropriate times.

In one embodiment of the invention, individual groups of users receive a common client identifier element. Accordingly, a plurality of clients of the owner who have signed up for the enhanced service include a common code portion in their client identifiers. When a message is received that includes a common code portion in a client identifier, each of those clients accepts the message.

While the present invention has been described in a limited number of embodiments, those skilled in the art will recognize suitable modifications and variations. It is to be understood that the appended claims cover such modifications and variations and that such modifications and variations are within the substantial scope or spirit of the present invention.

The present invention is generally used for exchanging information over a network.