Multiplex communications – Pathfinding or routing – Store and forward
Reexamination Certificate
1998-03-17
2002-01-08
Cangialosi, Salvatore (Department: 2661)
Multiplex communications
Pathfinding or routing
Store and forward
C370S429000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06337864
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a store-and-forward type of electronic conference system, and particularly to a technique for improving the reliability of the electronic conference system, by minimizing the quantity of informations to be transmitted, or by assuring the sequence of informations to be transmitted.
RELATED ART OF THE INVENTION
Generally, an “electronic conference system” designates or specifies those systems constituted for information-exchange between unspecified number of users. In a large-scale electronic conference system, the users of the electronic conference system are registered at each of geographically separated areas (hereinafter called “site”). The registered user can use only the site at which he has been registered.
In such an electronic conference system, there is generally adopted a store-and-forward type of communication system, such as in view of transmission speed of communication lines connecting between the sites. That is, the information generated at each of the sites is once stored into a transmission queue which stores informations to be transmitted, and then collectively or batch transmitted at each of a predetermined time of period. The information received at each sites other than the transmitting sites is once stored into a reception queue for storing received informations, and then processed by that background which has processing ability to spare.
Typically, electronic conference systems utilize those unit containers named “forum”. Further, the forums include hierarchical messages as informations.
However, in such an electronic conference system, there is adopted the store-and-forward type of communication system, so that there may occur such disadvantage, upon transmission of informations which have been stored in the transmission queue, as follows.
(1) In case that the informations are stored in the transmission queue in a sequence or order of “message creation, message modification, and message deletion” for a certain message, no effects will occur at the site which will receive these informations. Namely, when this series of informations comprising “message creation, message modification, and message deletion” are processed in this order or sequence, the message at issue will be resultantly deleted. This means that no processings have been executed for the message. As described above, the informations to be transmitted may include meaningless or wasteful informations, so that the communication efficiency may be deteriorated due to such wasteful increase of information quantity.
(2) When the transmission queue is stored such as with informations in a sequence of “creation of forum” and “writing (i.e., creation) of a message into the forum”, these informations should be transmitted in the order of “creation of forum” and “creation (or writing) of message”. However, upon transmission of the information designating “creation of forum”, there may occur a communication error such as due to trouble of a communication circuit. In this case, if the information designating “creation of message” is normally transmitted, there occurs such a trouble that the message is to be written into or created in a “not created forum”.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
In view of the aforementioned problems in the conventional technique, it is therefore a purpose of the present invention to dissolve the aforementioned defects to thereby improve the reliability of the electronic conference system, by optimizing the informations or assuring the sequence of the informations, stored in the transmission queue which realizes the store-and-forward type of communication system.
It is another purpose of the present invention to distribute those mediums which are recorded with the information transmission program according to the present invention, to thereby promote those persons, who have obtained such mediums, to easily constitute an information transmission apparatus.
A first solution for achieving the above purposes is constituted by: an information transmission apparatus in a store-and-forward type of electronic conference system in which operational informations representing operations performed for various objects are stored in a queue and the stored operational informations are batch transmitted between information administrating devices which administrate the various objects, the apparatus comprising an information deletion device for deleting the series of informations in the operational informations stored in the queue, which do not cause any resultant changes.
According to such a constitution, there are deleted, from those operational informations stored in the queue, the series of informations which do not cause any resultant changes. Namely, there is reduced the quantity of informations to be transmitted between information administrating devices, so that the optimization of informations is performed. Thus, the communication efficiency is improved by virtue of decrease of the quantity of informations, so that the reliability of the electronic conference system can be improved.
Concretely, the information deletion device may be constituted to delete, when a deletion operational information for a certain object is stored in the queue, those update operational informations for the certain object which update operational informations have been stored before the deletion operational information.
According to such a constitution, when a deletion operational information of a certain object exists in the queue, it can be judged that no resultant changes will be caused by update processings performed before the object deletion. Thus, by deleting the update operational informations for the certain object from the queue, there can be further reduced the quantity of informations to be transmitted between the information administrating devices.
Further, the information deletion device may be constituted to delete, when a creation operational information for the certain object which is an operation target of the deletion operational information is stored in the queue, the creation operational information and the deletion operational information.
According to such a constitution, when a creation operational information for the certain object exists in the queue, it can be judged that the certain object has not been created yet in other information administrating devices. Thus, by deleting the creation operational information and the deletion operational information from the queue, there can be further reduced the quantity of informations to be transmitted between the information administration devices.
Further, the information deletion device may be constituted to delete, when an update operational information for a certain object is stored in the queue, those update operational informations for the certain object which update operational informations have been stored before the update operational information.
According to such a constitution, even when the update of the certain object is performed for several times, it is possible for other information administrating devices to update the certain object to the latest contents by virtue of the latest update operational information only. Namely, it can be said that the truly necessary update operational information for the certain object is the latest one. As such, by deleting those update operational informations for the certain object which informations have been stored before the latest update operational information for the certain object, there can be further reduced the quantity of informations to be transmitted between the information administrating devices.
A second solution for achieving the above purposes is constituted by: an information transmission apparatus in a store-and-forward type of electronic conference system in which operational informations representing operations performed for various objects are stored into a queue and the stored operational informations are batch transmitted between information administrating devices which administrate the various objects, the apparatus com
Katsuchi Toshimoto
Murai Hiroyuki
Nitta Minoru
Oba Takayo
Tomita Katsuhiko
Cangialosi Salvatore
Fujitsu Limited
Staas & Halsey , LLP
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