System and method for harvesting of data from peripheral devices
AssigneeHewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P.
InventorMichael J. Hardcastle
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Abstract
In one embodiment there is disclosed a system and method for harvesting data from at least one device, by canvassing said devices and tracking which canvassed devices yielded harvested data and then repeating such canvassing and tracking until either data has been obtained from all of the devices, or a certain time has passed since the beginning of the canvassing period. In a further embodiment, when data has been obtained from all the devices or the time has passed, whichever comes first, the harvested data is sent to a central processing center.
Claims20
A method for harvesting data from at least one device, said method comprising:
- canvassing said at least one device in order to obtain data therefrom;
- tracking canvassed devices that have yielded data;
- and
- repeating said canvassing and tracking steps until the first to occur of the following:
- 1) data has been obtained from all of said at least one device, or
- 2) a certain time has passed since the beginning of said first canvassing step.
A system for harvesting information from groups of peripheral devices, said devices arranged into at least one node, each said node having at least one device, said system comprising:
- means at each said node for harvesting data during harvesting intervals from peripheral devices in communication with said node and for storing said harvested data, at least temporarily, at said node;
- said harvesting means comprising:
- means for keeping track of devices that are not available at a specific harvest time within said harvest interval;
- means operable at intervals for reharvesting data from ones of said devices that were not available at a last harvest time within said specific harvest interval;
- means for repeating said reharvesting of data until data has been harvested from all devices;
- and
- means operable at the conclusion of each said harvest interval for ending said harvesting interval and for sending to said system all data harvested from said node during said harvest interval.
A method for gathering consumable data from at least one device, said device having time constraints around which said consumable data can be gathered, said method comprising:
- establishing a periodic time window for gathering said data, said time window optimized around the time constraints of said devices;
- establishing within said time window a plurality of sub-time windows;
- attempting, during a first one of said sub-time windows, to gather data from all of said devices;
- and
- attempting, during each subsequent sub-time window of a periodic time window, to gather data from all devices that were not available during prior sub-time windows of said periodic time window.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.