Patent Application
20060010002
1. Field of the Invention
The invention concerns a method for storage and administration of data suitable for franking machines or franking systems and for other mail processing apparatuses and their peripheral devices.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The franking machine JetMail®, commercially available from Francotyp-Postalia Beteiligungs AG, is equipped with a base and a removable meter that contains a controller for controlling the printing and for controlling peripheral components of the franking machine. The base contains a mail piece transport device and an inkjet printer for printing the postage value imprint on the mail piece. The meter is operationally connected with a static scale integrated into the base housing and is, among other things, also used for postage calculation. The meter contains a security module that is equipped with a cryptographic unit in addition to a billing unit. The latter serves for securing an internally stored credit and the mail fee data to be printed.
The security module is used in different manners by service providers, but at a minimum is used when security-relevant data must be exchanged over an insecure data transfer path in a communication with a remote data center. The meter housing or the housing of a franking machine offers a first line of protection against manipulations with the intent of counterfeiting. Encapsulation of the security module by means of a special housing offers additional mechanical protection. Such an encapsulated security module satisfies the current postal requirements and is also designated as a postal security device (PSD). In some countries, credit downloading requires security measures that only a PSD can provide. The aforementioned known franking machines is connected with a tele-postage center in a known manner for telephonic credit downloading and can be expanded into a franking system with further devices.
Furthermore, it is known to exchange security data between a franking system and a data center remote therefrom via modem, the franking system containing a postal security device (PSD). Such franking machines or franking systems are commercially available from Francotyp-Postalia Beteiligungs AG under the names Mymail® and Ultimail®.
Another service of a postal carrier is a statistical tracking of franked mail according to statistics classes. Detection of pre-compressed data according to statistic classes in the franking machine is known from European Application 892368 that leads to an intentional storage space reduction due to the pre-compression. However, the storage is not continuous and cannot be queried at arbitrary points in time, but rather only periodically or according to stipulated time spans, in particular time spans that are pre-selected according to the desires of the respective postal carrier. Procedures wherein statistics classes (class of mail) are stored until the remote data center accesses them in order to determine a user profile are also known from European Applications 992947 and 101383. Data compression ensues in a manner independent of the desires of the respective postal carrier, but reduces the higher information content of the uncompressed data.
An arrangement and a method for improvement of data security by means of circular buffers is known in connection with further security measures from European Patent 854 425. Error data are securely stored in a circular buffer in a franking machine, even in the case of a voltage drop (power loss). This known approach, however, has the disadvantage of requiring substantial storage space for little data, and data are lost, such that not all of the data can be constantly interrogated from the storage. No indication of a further storage region with compressed data exists.
An object of the present invention is to provide a method for storage, and administration of data and an arrangement for implementation of the method, which ensure storage, external from the postal security device in a franking machine, of the point in time and the type of the occurrence of an event in order to be able display or further process the corresponding data. Information about an event should be able to be displayed, in particular when the event has occurred. This should be accomplished while making optimal use of the available storage space, so that the arrangement for storage and administration of data operates without additional storage space.
The invention is based on the recognition that each compression of data also entails an information loss. Therefore, a variable part of the storage region remains occupied by uncompressed data in order to be able to use the higher information content of the data, while data compression algorithms are applied that enable filling of the memory without overflow.
For the logging of data, for example error and/or event data, data are written into a first non-volatile memory upon the occurrence of an event that is to be tracked. The data can include an event identification, time information and arbitrary further information. If, in the case of storage of uncompressed data, the sub-region provided for this purpose in the first non-volatile storage region is exceeded, a compression of a part of the data ensues and of the compressed data are stored in a separate, second non-volatile storage region, for example in a statistic class that essentially contains only information as to how often an event occurred. The memory formed by the first and second non-volatile storage regions is also designated as a log memory, but can be formed by two separate memory units. The first non-volatile storage region is also designated as uncompressed storage NCM (non-compressed memory) and may be composed, for example, of four sub-regions. An overflow of a threshold and thus a full occupancy of the sub-regions can be established by a testing (checking) of the addresses. The second non-volatile storage region is also designated as a compressed storage CM (compressed memory).
The data handled by the method for storage and administration of data originate from a storage distribution and proceed into a first storage region and into a second storage region according to the steps:
The method combines the advantage of a higher information content in the remaining uncompressed data with a high storage capability for compressed data. The data compression ensues according to a data compression algorithm in which at least parts of uncompressed data of the log memory are read and compressed. The newly-compressed data and the already-compressed and stored data are merged upon compression and stored as compressed data in the second non-volatile storage region or in a separate storage (compressed memory). The data of the log memory are shifted in the event of compression such that the last-registered data are shifted into a sub-region in a lower address range of the first storage region. The remaining sub-regions of the first storage region can be erased since their data exists in compressed form stored in the second storage region. If the log memory data are to be interrogated, the current data of the log memory are output. If the statistics data are to be interrogated, the log memory data are compressed and output together with the compressed, stored data. The stored, compressed data remain unchanged and are not overwritten.
The arrangement for implementation of the method includes a non-volatile memory, a microprocessor and a program memory that are operationally connected with one another. The non-volatile memory has a first storage region for data and a second storage region for compressed data. The program memory contains an application program that programs the microprocessor to
The microprocessor can be programmed to react to a number of thresholds. A second threshold is a second threshold address (a predetermined address). A switch-on causes a compression of the data by the microprocessor when the second threshold is exceeded and does not initiate compression when the second threshold is not exceeded. A third threshold is a third threshold address or (predetermined address). During operation a compression of the data is made by the microprocessor when the third threshold is exceeded and does not initiate compression when the third threshold is not exceeded. It is furthermore provided that the address of each threshold is selected device-dependent or dependent on a machine state of a device.
Before each compression of data, a buffer can be initialized in order to buffer read-out data of the first storage region until a lower limit (for example the start address) in the uncompressed storage is reached, so as to then read data from the buffer and to establish an event type. For each event type the associated data are compressed and stored in the second storage region, and subsequently each event type that was stored in the second storage region is erased in the buffer. Alternatively, erasure of the remaining sub-regions in the first storage region can ensue with the shifting of the second data.
A further known franking system by the applicant of the type Jetmail® in principle corresponds to the block image shown in
Alternatively, the storage regions I, II (i.e. for the non-compressed memory (NCM) and compressed memory (CM)) are two separate non-volatile memories.
The second storage region II or CM contains compressed data. the microprocessor 22 is programmed to erase the appertaining data at least from the sub-regions in the lower address range of the first storage region I after the compression, and then to shift the data from the sub-regions in the upper address range of the first storage region I to a sub-region in the lower address range of the first storage region I. Such data of the franking system 1 or the franking machine 2 are, for example, the last-stored error data and/or event data. Upon occurrence of a further (tracked) event, data (for example for an error statistic or other statistic) are written into the first non-volatile storage region I or NCM. In principle the following states occur in running operation:
Upon compression of data, the uncompressed first data are read out from the first storage region I of the non-volatile memory 23 and are compressed. The now compressed data and the already compressed data stored in the second storage region II are merged and stored as compressed data in the second non-volatile storage region II.
According to the preferred embodiment, the first storage region I is partitioned into four sub-regions and has thresholds that allow it to establish the respective occupancy states of these sub-regions.
A first sub-region lies between a start address A#0 and a predetermined first address A#1. Still-uncompressed information that concern the last stored events also always remain in the first sub-region after the compression of data. A second sub-region lies between the predetermined first address A#1 and a predetermined second address A#2. If the overflow of the second sub-region in the direction of a third sub-region is detected immediately after the activation, a compression of the data ensues, whereby only uncompressed data regarding last events is still present in the first sub-region as a result. A third sub-region lies between the predetermined second address A#2 and a predetermined third address A#3. After activating and powering up the device, this third sub-region can be occupied during the running operation without further activities being activated.
A fourth sub-region lies between the predetermined third address A#3 and a predetermined fourth address A#4. Specification of this region is established by overflowing the predetermined third address and leads to compression of the data from the lower log data ranges. Testing of each of the predetermined addresses ensues upon powering up the device, for example the franking machine 2. If, upon powering up the franking machine 2, it is established that the recording in log data regions has already reached into the third sub-regions, the data stored in the lower sub-regions of the first storage region I of the non-volatile memory 23 are likewise compressed. The volatile memory RAM 25 is thereby used as a buffer.
Further thresholds or queries can be necessary in a franking machine or mail processing system. The sub-routine 100 can be expanded by further queries for overrun of further thresholds, whereby the queries ensue at different points in time and initiate corresponding different reactions, which was explained in principle using the mode of operation of
If no corresponding event type exists in the buffer 25, in step 205 an entry corresponding to the event type is created in the buffer 25. However, if an entry of the corresponding event type was already created in the buffer 25, then the method branches from the second query step 204 to the step 206 in order to increment a counter state of a first counter corresponding to the frequency of occurrence of the event of the same type. From step 205 or from step 206, the method branches back to the first query step 202 to establish a condition for ending the compression of the data in the sub-regions. Upon reaching the predetermined address (start address or address as the transition between the first and second data of the first storage region I), the data content exists stored in the buffer TM, for example in a RAM 25. A step 207 for reading an entry of an event type out from the buffer 25 is now reached, and subsequently a third query step 208.
In the third query step 208 it is checked whether the appertaining event type is already present in the second storage region II with the compressed data. If this is still not the case, a step 209 is then reached in order to create an entry of the appertaining event type in the second storage region II. Otherwise, when in the third query step 208 it is established that the appertaining event type is already present in the second storage region II with the compressed data, a step 210 is then reached in order to increment a counter state of a second counter corresponding to the frequency of events for the appertaining event type in the second storage region II. From the step 209 or from the step 210, the method branches to an erasure step 211 to erase the event type buffered in RAM 25 before a fourth query step 212 is reached. In the fourth query step 212, it is checked whether a further event type exists buffered in the RAM 25. If this is the case, the method branches back to the step 207 in order to read a further event type out from the RAM 25. Otherwise the end of the routine 200 is reached after the fourth query step 212 (step 213).
The aforementioned algorithm for the data compression of the event storage has the result that all previously acquired data are no longer found in the storage region II or in (the storage for compressed data). Instead, only (for example) the event identification and the count of the occurrence of the event are located there. The events are listed in ascending or descending order of the frequency values in the statistic, together with their event numbers. Upon compression of the data, the data reduced in terms of their information are transferred into a new list together with the existing data reduced in terms of their information, which list has the known structure (order of the frequencies and their event numbers). This list is then stored in the storage region for compressed data. Other reductions are likewise conceivable.
Exemplary embodiments for data retention of the compressed storage region (statistic) are:
For all exemplary embodiments only the frequency of occurrence information is incremented given events already listed in the statistics.
The term “franking system” as used herein also encompasses a PC franker formed by a personal computer with a PSD and a conventional office printer. The method described above can also be implemented in a personal computer.
Although modifications and changes may be suggested by those skilled in the art, it is the intention of the inventors to embody within the patent warranted hereon all changes and modifications as reasonably and properly come within the scope of their contribution to the art.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10 2004 033 598.2 | Jul 2004 | DE | national |
