Relay device, image forming apparatus, relay method, and non-transitory computer-readable recording medium encoded with relay program

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9811294-B2
Application number	US-201414554139-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Nov 26, 2014
Priority date	Dec 4, 2013
Publication date	Nov 7, 2017
Grant date	Nov 7, 2017

Abstract

A relay device includes a first session establishing portion to establish a first communication session with a cloud server located outside a firewall, a second session establishing portion to establish a second communication session with a control target device located inside the firewall, a device information acquiring portion to acquire device information about the control target device, and a relay portion to relay a communication between the cloud server and the control target device. The relay portion includes an executability determining portion to determine whether the control target device can execute a process specified by a control command received from the cloud server, a suspending portion to suspend an output of the control command when the determination result is non-executable, and a proxy transmission portion operable, when the determination result becomes executable after the control command was put on hold, to transmit the control command to the control target device.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A relay device disposed inside a firewall and connected to a control target device disposed inside the firewall, the relay device comprising:
a hardware processor configured to:
establish a first communication session with a cloud server located outside the firewall;
establish a second communication session with said control target device;
acquire device information about said control target device;
in response to reception of a control command from said cloud server via said first communication session, determine whether said control target device is able to execute a process specified by said control command based on the acquired device information prior to transmitting said control command to said control target device;
when the control command is determined to be non-executable based on the acquired device information, suspend a transmission of said control command to said control target device and store the control command before sending said control command to said control target device so that said control target device does not begin executing said control command;
after the transmission of said control command to said control target device is suspended and stored, continue to intermittently acquire said device information about said control target device at prescribed time intervals; and
when the control command is determined to be executable based on the device information acquired in said intermittent prescribed time intervals after said control command was suspended, transmit the suspended control command to said control target device, on behalf of said cloud server, via said second communication session.

2. The relay device according to claim 1 , wherein the hardware processor is further configured:
in the case where said control command is suspended, to notify said cloud server that said control command has been suspended, on behalf of said control target device, via said first communication session.

3. The relay device according to claim 1 , wherein the hardware processor is further configured:
to receive, via said second communication session, an execution result that said control target device transmits in response to transmission of said control command; and
in response to reception of said execution result, to notify said cloud server of said received execution result, on behalf of said control target device, via said first communication session.

4. The relay device according to claim 1 , wherein at a stage before said control command is suspended, the hardware processor determines executability of the control target device on the basis of the device information that is acquired before said control command is received.

5. The relay device according to claim 1 , wherein the hardware processor is further configured:
in the case where the control command is determined to be non-executable on the basis of the device information acquired at a time point when said control command was received via said first communication session and in the case where said control command is a command to store data, to receive data transmitted from said cloud server, on behalf of said control target device, via said first communication session;
to store said received data into a storage device which is different from said control target device and is disposed inside the firewall; and
after said control command has been transmitted to said control target device, to acquire said data from said storage device and to transmit said acquired data to said control target device, on behalf of said cloud server, via said second communication session.

6. The relay device according to claim 1 , wherein the hardware processor is further configured:
to establish an always-on session with a management server located outside the firewall;
to receive a connection request from said management server via said always-on session, the connection request being received by said management server from said cloud server and including address information of a connection source and address information of a connection destination; wherein
the hardware processor establishes said first communication session using the address information of said connection destination included in said received connection request, and
the hardware processor establishes said second communication session with said control target device which is specified by the address information of said connection source included in said received connection request.

7. An image forming apparatus comprising the relay device according to claim 1 , wherein said image forming apparatus is said control target device.

8. An image forming apparatus comprising the relay device according to claim 1 , wherein said control target device is selected by a user operating the cloud server, from among said image forming apparatus and another device disposed inside the firewall.

9. A relay method performed by a relay device disposed inside a firewall and connected to a control target device disposed inside the firewall, the method comprising:
a first session establishing step of establishing a first communication session with a cloud server located outside the firewall;
a second session establishing step of establishing a second communication session with said control target device;
a device information acquiring step of acquiring device information about said control target device;
an executability determining step of determining, in response to reception of a control command from said cloud server via said first communication session, whether said control target device is able to execute a process specified by said control command based on the acquired device information prior to transmitting said control command to said control target device;
when the control command is determined to be non-executable based on the acquired device information, a suspending step of suspending a transmission of said control command to said control target device and storing said control command before sending said control command to said control target device so that said control target device does not begin executing said control command;
after the suspending step in which transmission of said control command to said control target device is suspended and stored, continuously intermittently acquiring said device information about said control target device at prescribed time intervals; and
a proxy transmitting step of transmitting the suspended control command to said control target device, on behalf of said cloud server, via said second communication session when the control command is determined to be executable based on the device information acquired in said intermittent prescribed time intervals after the control command was suspended.

10. The relay method according to claim 9 , further comprising a first notification step of, in the case where said control command is suspended, notifying said cloud server that said control command has been suspended, on behalf of said control target device, via said first communication session.

11. The relay method according to claim 9 , further comprising:
an execution result receiving step of receiving, via said second communication session, an execution result that said control target device transmits in response to transmission of said control command in said proxy transmitting step; and
a second notification step of, in response to reception of said execution result in said execution result receiving step, notifying said cloud server of said received execution result, on behalf of said control target device, via said first communication session.

12. The relay method according to claim

Assignees

• Konica Minolta; Inc
• Konica Minolta Inc

Inventors

• Ito Yasutaka
• Sawayanagi Kazumi
• Asamoto Noriaki
• Yamada Masami
• Uchida Hisashi
• Yoneda Shuji
• Anezaki Kazuya
• Torigoshi Akihiro

Classifications

• G06F3/1286

  via local network · CPC title

• G06F3/1236 Primary

  Connection management · CPC title

• H04L63/0281

  Proxies · CPC title

• G06F3/1222

  Increasing security of the print job · CPC title

• G06F3/1287

  via internet · CPC title