Multinode distributed integrity of producing files

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11468382-B2
Application number	US-201514955815-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Dec 1, 2015
Priority date	Dec 2, 2014
Publication date	Oct 11, 2022
Grant date	Oct 11, 2022

Abstract

A system of producing files containing information about printed mailpieces comprising a plurality of folder inserters (22, 24, 26) each having a reading device for extracting at least a job ID and a mailpiece ID, the system comprising at least:a processing node (32, 34, 36) adapted to check the job ID and mailpiece ID from the printed mailpiece and to check out a relevant job against locally held rules;a storage node (38) connected to the processing node and adapted to store the job ID and mailpiece ID sent by the processing node; andan interface node (40) connected to the storage node and adapted to import and export the files.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A system of handling of physical mailpieces and producing data files containing information about printed mailpieces belonging to a same job, the system comprising a plurality of folder inserters each having a reading device for extracting at least a job ID and a mailpiece ID from each of said printed mailpiece, wherein for processing said printed mailpieces through said plurality of folder inserters the system comprises at least:
a processing node, including computing hardware configured with data-processing and communications facilities, the processing node being connected, via at least one corresponding near-real-time connection, with at least one folder inserter of said plurality of folder inserters, wherein the processing node is adapted to control and monitor operation of the at least one folder inserter, including to check said job ID against job integrity rules and to check said mailpiece ID against mailpiece integrity rules, and to further check out a job corresponding to said job ID, wherein said job represents a plurality of mailpieces to be processed as a batch through the at least one folder inserter;
a storage node, including computing hardware configured with data-storage and communications facilities, the storage node is connected to said processing node and adapted to store data representing jobs and mailpieces corresponding to those jobs in permanent storage; and
an interface node, including computing hardware configured with file import/export facilities, the interface node is connected to said storage node and adapted to import and export said files;
wherein communications between the processing node and the storage and interface nodes are not necessarily carried out over near-real-time connections;
wherein the processing node is adapted to check out the job from the storage node for exclusive use by the processing node, wherein upon checking out the job the processing node receives runtime information about the job and the mailpieces associated with that job, and while the job is checked out to the processing node:
the processing node becomes a primary processing node for the job;
all transactions relating to the checked out job, and mailpieces within the job processed by any folder inserters of said plurality of folder inserters, are directed to be controlled and monitored by the primary processing node; and
the processing node records a result of processing of each of the mailpieces of the checked out job in a memory of the processing node; and

wherein the processing node is further adapted to check the job back in to the storage node after completion of processing of the mailpieces of the job, including sending the result of the processing of each of the mailpieces corresponding to that job to the storage node.

2. The system of claim 1 further comprising a user frontend connected to said storage node and adapted to receive data.

3. The system of claim 1 , wherein said processing node, said storage node and said interface node are in a same computer.

4. The system of claim 1 , wherein said processing node, said storage node and said interface node are split onto different computers.

5. The system of claim 3 , wherein communications between said processing node, said storage node and said interface node use a local protocol.

6. The system of claim 4 , wherein communications between said processing node, said storage node and said interface node use a network protocol.

7. The system of claim 1 , wherein each folder inserter has a processing node and wherein the processing nodes of the folder inserters relay said job ID and mailpiece ID to the processing node that has checked out the job.

8. The system of claim 1 , comprising a single processing node and wherein all folder inserters share said single processing node.

9. The system of claim 1 , wherein the communications between said nodes are serialized within a message object having a transaction ID.

10. The system of claim 1 , wherein the plurality of folder inserters is allocated to a plurality of production sites.

11. The system of claim 1 , wherein the plurality of folder inserters is located at a first production site and the job is processed simultaneously by more than one of the plurality of folder inserters at the first production site.

12. The system of claim 1 , wherein the plurality of folder inserters is located at least at a first production site and a second production site and the job is processed successively by at least one of the plurality of folder inserters at the first production site and at least one of the plurality of folder inserters at the second production site.

13. The system of claim 1 , wherein the plurality of folder inserters is located at least at a first production site and a second production site and the job is processed simultaneously by at least one of the plurality of folder inserters at the first production site and at least one of the plurality of folder inserters at the second production site.

14. The system of claim 1 , wherein the processing node is adapted to relay the job to another processing node if the job has already been checked out by said another processing node.

Assignees

• Neopost Tech
• Quadient Tech France

Inventors

• Ashworth Peter

Classifications

• G06Q10/0633 Primary

  Workflow analysis · CPC title

• G06F16/183

  Provision of network file services by network file servers, e.g. by using NFS, CIFS (network file access protocols H04L67/1097) · CPC title

• G07B2017/00443

  Verification of mailpieces, e.g. by checking databases · CPC title

• G07B2017/00048

  Software architecture · CPC title

• B43M3/04

  automatic · CPC title