WO2012155743A1 - State-indicating apparatus and device, device state-indicating system, and information sending method - Google Patents

Abstract

A state-indicating apparatus and device, a device state-indicating system, and an information sending method. The state-indicating apparatus includes a universal connector, a state processing module and a display module connected successively, wherein the universal connector is configured to transfer the received state information about an external device to the state processing module; the state processing module is configured to convert the state information into a signal driving the display module to display the state information and sending the signal to the display module; and the display module is configured to display the state information under the drive of the signal sent by the state processing module. The state-indicating apparatus makes no change to the currently available device form, does not reduce the current number of ports, and also indicates various states of the device conveniently, greatly improving the maintainability and serviceability of the device.

Description

 Status indicating device, device, device status indication system, and information transmitting method

Technical field

 The present invention relates to a state indicating technique, and more particularly to a state indicating device, a device, a device status indicating system, and an information transmitting method.

Background technique

 The development of electronic technology is rapid, and the processing technology of each chip is gradually improved. From the common 130nm process to the current 65nm, 28nm is the mainstream within two or three years. That is to say, more functions can be realized in the same single board area. Compared with the development of chip technology, the interface device specifications are mature due to the standard, the market is very large, and there are compatibility problems. It is difficult to integrate the chip. Synchronization is improved. Therefore, how to make more interfaces on the original standard 19-inch chassis, such as electronic equipment, especially communication equipment, has become the goal pursued by various manufacturers. Take the data product shown in Figure 1 as an example. The front and rear panels are covered with data interfaces or modules. If the full-span mode is used, the front panel is full of RJ45 cables or optical fibers, and the rear panel occupies module power and heat dissipation. Modules or daughter card modules, even if a rich indicator port is set on the device body, it will be disabled due to the installation of a large number of cables. In addition, the indicators will be blocked for the maintenance of the personnel due to too many cables. Inconvenient; At the same time, if the connector side is front, the power status indication on the back of the device, the fan status indication is more difficult to observe.

 Moreover, with the increase in labor costs, the cost of network management personnel is getting higher and higher. How to conveniently check the status of equipment and improve maintenance efficiency are put on the road.

 In addition, with the increase in the cost of renting the equipment room and the application of new technologies for energy conservation and emission reduction, the same area of the equipment room must accommodate a larger number of equipment. The distance between devices is further reduced, and it is becoming more and more important to conveniently view the working state of the device without moving the device.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention provides a status indication device, a device, a device status indication system, and an information transmission method to solve the problem of obstructing an indicator light due to excessive cables, causing inconvenience to the working state of the inspection and maintenance equipment, and The cable is set to occupy the indicator light, which reduces the number of indicators. The invention provides a state indicating device, which comprises a universal connector, a state processing module and a display module which are sequentially connected, wherein:

 The universal connector is configured to: transmit status information of the received external device to the status processing module;

 The status processing module is configured to: convert the status information into a signal for driving the display module to display the status information, and send the signal to the display module;

 The display module is configured to: display status information under the driving of the signal sent by the state processing module.

 Preferably, the universal connector comprises a clock signal interface, a data signal interface, a power signal interface, a ground signal interface and an in-position signal interface.

 Preferably, the state processing module is configured to: serially and serially convert the serial data signal by using a serial data signal including state information of an external device received through a clock signal interface and a data signal interface, to obtain the driving The display module displays a signal of the status information. Preferably, the state processing module comprises a single chip microcomputer, and the display module comprises a status indicator light array and/or a liquid crystal screen.

 The present invention also provides an apparatus comprising a universal connector and a control device connected to each other, wherein:

 The universal connector includes a data signal interface and an in-position signal interface;

 The control device is configured to: after determining that the external status indication device is in position according to the signal of the in-position signal interface, send the status information of the device to the status indication device through the data signal interface.

 Preferably, the universal connector further includes a clock signal interface, a power signal interface, and a ground signal interface.

 Preferably, the control device comprises a control unit, a programmable logic device (CPLD) and an interface chip connected to the control unit, wherein:

The CPLD is configured to: send, according to the signal of the in-position signal interface, that the status indication device is in position, send an activation signal to the control unit; The control unit is configured to: after receiving the startup signal, obtain status information of the device, and send the status information to the interface chip;

 The interface chip is configured to: receive the status information sent by the control unit, and send the status information to the status indication device by using the clock signal interface and the data signal interface.

 The present invention also provides a device status indication system including the above status indication device and the above device.

 The invention also provides a method for transmitting information, the method comprising:

 After receiving the signal indicating that the external status indicating device is in place, the device transmits status information of the device to the status indicating device.

 Preferably, after the device receives the signal indicating that the external status indicating device is in position, the device sends the status information of the device to the status indicating device, including:

 After receiving the signal indicating that the external status indication device is in position, the device obtains status information of the device, and sends the status information to the status indication device;

 The status information of the device includes one or more of interface status information, power status information, and fan status information of the device.

 Preferably, after the device receives the signal indicating that the external status indicating device is in place, the method further includes:

 The device actively obtains prompt information of the device, and sends the prompt information to the status indication device; and/or

 The device obtains prompt information of the device according to the setting of the user, and sends the prompt information to the status indicating device.

 The state indicating device does not change the existing device form, does not reduce the current number of ports, and conveniently indicates each state of the device, thereby greatly improving the maintainability and serviceability of the device. BRIEF abstract

 1 is a schematic diagram of an interface on front and rear panels of an existing device;

2 is a schematic structural view of an embodiment of the apparatus of the present invention; 3 is a schematic diagram of a data stream format of the present invention;

 4 is a process flow diagram of an embodiment of transmitting information by the device of the present invention;

 Figure 5 is a schematic structural view of an embodiment of a state indicating device of the present invention;

 Figure 6 is a schematic view showing the position of the state indicating device of the present invention in a rack;

 Figure 7 is a schematic view of a panel of the state indicating device of the present invention.

Preferred embodiment of the invention

 In order to make the objects, the technical solutions and the advantages of the present invention more clearly, the embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings. It should be noted that, in the case of no conflict, the features in the embodiments and the embodiments of the present application may be arbitrarily combined with each other.

 2 is a schematic structural diagram of an apparatus embodiment of the present invention, the apparatus includes a universal connector 21 and a control device 22 connected to each other, and the device can pass the universal connector and the state indicating device of the embodiment (FIG. 2 If not shown, referring to FIG. 5, unless otherwise specified, the state indicating device herein refers to a state indicating device that is separately provided from the device, wherein: the universal connector includes a data signal interface and an in-position signal interface; The control device is configured to send status information of the device to the status indication device through the data signal interface after determining that the external status indication device is in position according to the signal of the in-position signal interface.

The universal connector may further include a clock signal interface, a power signal interface, and a ground signal interface. The universal connector can be selected from a standard USB interface. In this embodiment, a mini USB interface is selected, which has the characteristics of generality, compactness, and low cost. The miniUSB provides five signal interfaces, defined as power (POWER), ground (GND), in-position (Board ON), clock (LED_CLK), and data (LED-DATA) signal interfaces. Wherein, the state indicating device is powered by POWER and GND, and the state indicating device is instructed by the BoardON indicating; the control device comprises a control unit, a programmable logic device and an interface chip connected to the control unit, wherein: a programmable logic device, configured to send, according to the signal of the in-position signal interface, the status indicating device, after the bit is in position, to send a start signal to the control unit; the control unit, after receiving the start signal, Obtaining status information of the device, and sending the status information to the interface chip; the interface chip is configured to receive the status information sent by the control unit, and pass the clock The signal interface and the data signal interface transmit the status information to the status indicating device. Of course, the above programmable logic device can be a complex programmable logic device (CPLD).

 The invention also provides a method for transmitting information, the method comprising:

 After receiving the signal indicating that the external status indicating device is in place, the device transmits status information of the device to the status indicating device.

 After the device receives the signal indicating that the external status indicating device is in position, the device sends the status information of the device to the status indicating device, including:

 After receiving the signal indicating that the external status indication device is in position, the device obtains status information of the device, and sends the status information to the status indication device;

 The status information of the device includes one or more of interface status information, power status information, and fan status information of the device.

 In addition, after the device receives the signal indicating that the external status indication device is in position, the method further includes: the device actively obtaining the prompt information of the device, and sending the prompt information to the status indication device; And/or the device obtains prompt information of the device according to the setting of the user, and sends the prompt information to the status indication device.

In summary, the above device uses its own control unit to collect the state indication information required for system maintenance in a certain period, and the control unit processes the serial data into a serial data through a general-purpose input/output (GPIO) interface. Interface chip output. The status information is divided into two cases. One is that the control unit autonomously outputs all status information, etc.; the other is set by the user autonomously, and the control unit system selectively displays the information of interest to the user in response to the user setting. When the control unit outputs autonomously, there are two status sources, one is the output of the control unit itself, such as system operation indication, system alarm information, status information when the system is working, such information is directly processed by the host software; the other is other Modules such as the power status module and the fan status module output are sent to the CPLD logic registers, which require the host software to periodically read them. After all the status indications are available, the software programs the data into a serial stream that is sent through the GPIO interface (ie, LED-CLK and LED-DATA). When the user sets it autonomously, the corresponding command can be input through the console interface that comes with the device. The control unit processes these commands, filters and sorts the collected status indication information, and after programming the serial code stream, sends it through the GPIO interface. . The serial stream is composed of two lines of LED data and LED-elk. As shown in Figure 3, the frequency of the LED-elk can be set to about 5MHz. The LED-data is determined by the control unit according to whether the device is in position or not. Data information involved in the transmission. When the status indicating device is not in position, the original indicator mode is used; when the status indicating device is in position, the control unit obtains the indicator data from the CPLD related register, and integrates with the port indication data in the interface chip, through the LED— Data and LED—elk interface is sent; the specific processing flow is shown in Figure 4. The process includes:

 Step 401, the device determines whether the status indication device is in place, if not in place, step 402 is performed, otherwise, step 403 is performed;

 Step 402: The device outputs indicator information according to the original mode;

 If the device is not in position, the device uses the status indicator device of the device in FIG. 2 to display the state of the device; if the device is in position, the state indicating device independent of the device provided by the embodiment of the present invention sends various kinds of information;

 Step 403, the device determines whether the user performs personalization, if not set, can send status information of the device to the status indicating device independent of the device; end; if set, go to step 404;

 Step 404: The device imports the user's settings, and obtains information about the device that is of interest to the user according to the user's settings, and sends the information to the status indicating device that is independent of the device.

 The information is prompt information and/or status information;

 Step 405: The device software monitors whether the status indication device is removed at any time. If it is removed, the device outputs the indicator information according to the original mode. Otherwise, the user setting is updated at any time. If yes, the process proceeds to step 404. No, the data is dynamically updated based on existing settings.

As shown in FIG. 5, it is a schematic structural diagram of an embodiment of the state indicating device of the present invention. The state indicating device is used to indicate the state of the device shown in FIG. 2, and is separately disposed from the device shown in FIG. 2, and includes: a universal connector 51, a state processing module 52, and a display module 53, wherein: the universal connector is configured to transmit status information of the received external device to the state processing module; the state processing module is configured to Translating the status information into a signal for driving the display module to display the status information, and transmitting the signal to the display module; the display module is configured to be driven by the signal sent by the status processing module , display status information. Since the device is separate from the device, the device can be placed as needed, for example, can be mounted to the front or the rear of the rack as desired, as shown in Figure 6, for ease of inspection and maintenance.

 The state processing module can be connected to the device through a universal connector and a cable. The universal connector has five interfaces, as shown in FIG. 5, respectively, a power supply (POWER), a ground (GND), and a position. (Board), a clock (LED_CLK) and a data (LED DATA) signal interface; the state processing module converts the state information into a signal for driving the display module to display the state information, which is used for: And serial data signals received by the data signal interface including state information of the external device, and serially converting the serial data signals to obtain a signal for driving the display module to display the state information.

 In addition, the state processing module includes a single chip microcomputer, and the display module includes an array of status indicators and/or a liquid crystal screen.

 Further, the above state processing module can be implemented by using a low-cost single-chip microcomputer, which can not only complete the simple serial-to-parallel conversion driving status indicator, but also provides a liquid crystal screen interface, and displays more information of interest to the user through the liquid crystal screen, which is convenient. User maintenance. The panel of the above status indicating device is as shown in FIG.

 The state indicating device is separated from the device, and the existing device mode is not changed, the current port number is not reduced, and the various states of the device are conveniently indicated, thereby greatly improving the maintainability and serviceability of the device.

 The present invention also provides a device status indication system, including the above status indication device (see FIG. 5) and the above device (see FIG. 2). The system does not change the current device configuration, and does not reduce the current number of ports. In this case, the various states of the device can be conveniently indicated, which greatly improves the maintainability and serviceability of the device.

One of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that all or a portion of the above steps may be accomplished by a program that instructs the associated hardware, such as a read-only memory, a magnetic disk, or an optical disk. Alternatively, all or part of the steps of the above embodiments may also be implemented using one or more integrated circuits. Correspondingly, each module/unit in the foregoing embodiment may be implemented in the form of hardware, or may be implemented in the form of a software function module. The invention is not limited to any What is the combination of specific forms of hardware and software.

 The above embodiments are only intended to illustrate the technical solutions of the present invention and are not to be construed as limiting the invention. It should be understood by those skilled in the art that the present invention may be modified or equivalently substituted without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention.

Industrial applicability

 The state indicating device does not change the existing device form, does not reduce the current number of ports, and conveniently indicates each state of the device, thereby greatly improving the maintainability and serviceability of the device.

Claims

Claim  A state indicating device, comprising: a universal connector, a state processing module, and a display module, which are sequentially connected, wherein: the universal connector is configured to: transmit status information of the received external device to the state processing module;  The status processing module is configured to: convert the status information into a signal for driving the display module to display the status information, and send the signal to the display module;  The display module is configured to: display status information under the driving of the signal sent by the state processing module.  2. The status indicating device according to claim 1, wherein  The universal connector includes a clock signal interface, a data signal interface, a power signal interface, a ground signal interface, and an in-position signal interface.  3. The status indicating device according to claim 2, wherein  The state processing module is configured to: serially and continuously convert the serial data signal by using a serial data signal received by a clock signal interface and a data signal interface, and output driving the display module to display The signal of the status information.  4. The status indicating device according to claim 3, wherein  The state processing module includes a single chip microcomputer, and the display module includes an array of status indicators and/or a liquid crystal display.  5. A device comprising a universal connector and a control device connected to each other, wherein: the universal connector comprises a data signal interface and an in-position signal interface;  The control device is configured to: after determining that the external status indication device is in position according to the signal of the in-position signal interface, send the status information of the device to the status indication device through the data signal interface.  6. The apparatus according to claim 5, wherein  The universal connector also includes a clock signal interface, a power signal interface, and a ground signal interface. 7. The apparatus according to claim 6, wherein The control device includes a control unit and a programmable logic device connected to the control unit (CPLD) and interface chip, where:  The CPLD is configured to: after determining that the status indication device is in position according to the signal of the in-position signal interface, send an activation signal to the control unit;  The control unit is configured to: after receiving the startup signal, obtain status information of the device, and send the status information to the interface chip;  The interface chip is configured to: receive the status information sent by the control unit, and send the status information to the status indication device by using the clock signal interface and the data signal interface.  A device status indicating system comprising the status indicating device according to any one of claims 1 to 4 and the device according to any one of claims 5 to 7.  9. A method for transmitting information, the method comprising:  After receiving the signal indicating that the external status indicating device is in place, the device transmits status information of the device to the status indicating device.  10. The method according to claim 9, wherein  After the device receives the signal indicating that the external status indicating device is in place, the device sends the status information of the device to the status indicating device, including:  After receiving the signal indicating that the external status indication device is in position, the device obtains status information of the device, and sends the status information to the status indication device;  The status information of the device includes one or more of interface status information, power status information, and fan status information of the device.  11. The method according to claim 10, wherein  After the device receives the signal indicating that the external status indicating device is in place, the method further includes:  The device actively obtains prompt information of the device, and sends the prompt information to the status indication device; and/or  The device obtains prompt information of the device according to the setting of the user, and sends the prompt information to the status indicating device.