Field of the Invention
The present disclosure relates to a maintenance function for information shared between information processing apparatuses.
Description of the Related Art
Up to now, a sharing system in which information is shared between information processing apparatuses has been proposed. A server described in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2004-86800 holds an update content of a database held in the server as an update history. Subsequently, this update history is transmitted from the server to a client. In this manner, the information held in the server is matched with the information held in the client.
Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2004-94294 describes an information sharing system in which a content of setting information held in a client is transmitted from the client to a server.
In addition, up to now, a technology for backing up and restoring setting information of a device has been proposed. Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2007-43287 describes a technology for executing restoration processing on the basis of a predetermined restoration rule when backed-up setting information of an image processing apparatus is restored.
The image processing apparatus described in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2007-43287 determines whether a MAC address, an IP address, an optional device, or the like of an apparatus on which the information is reflected is changed before and after the restoration. Subsequently, it is determined whether or not the restoration is executed for each setting item on the basis of a determination result.
According to a technology in a related art, after information of a server is restored by backup information, information indicating a configuration of a client which is held in the server (hereinafter, will be referred to as configuration information) and a configuration of the actual client may be inconsistent with each other in some cases. The configuration information of the client includes, for example, version information of firmware of the client, information on the presence or absence of a facsimile (FAX) unit, information on the presence or absence of a finisher, or the like.
When restoration is performed in the server, the information held in the server is restored to the content at a time of backup, and the content updated at or after the time of the backup is discarded. On the other hand, the client continues holding the configuration updated at or after the time of the backup. Therefore, in a case where the configuration of the client is updated between the backup and the restoration, inconsistency may occur between the configuration information of the client which is held in the server after the restoration and the configuration of the actual client in some cases.
When the configuration information of the client which is held in the server and the configuration of the actual client are inconsistent with each other, a problem occurs that sharing of the setting information in accordance with the configuration of the client may not be performed in some cases.
According to Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2004-86800 and Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2004-94294, no consideration has been made on a configuration in which the information held in the server is backed up.
Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2007-43287 describes a configuration in which a user is asked whether or not the restoration is executed in a case where a change or the like is made to an optional device in its own apparatus. However, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2007-43287 does not disclose a method of executing the restoration while securing the consistency between the configuration information held in another apparatus (server) and the configuration of its own apparatus.
USPTO Backgrounds
USPTO Backgrounds