JPH07110791A - Email system - Google Patents

Abstract

(57) [Summary] [Purpose] By sending the content of a failure that occurs while sending an e-mail to the administrator as an e-mail with the importance and delivery priority added, an administrator at a remote location can trouble the system. It is possible to know the occurrence and its importance one after another. [Structure] Means 01021 for detecting a failure occurring during transmission of an electronic mail, means 01030 for creating an electronic mail indicating the content of the failure detected by the means, its importance, and distribution priority, and the created electronic mail By providing a means 01032 for transmitting an e-mail as an error notification e-mail to the administrator, the administrator can sequentially know the occurrence of an error in the system regardless of the remote location.
Administrators will be able to easily understand the importance of a disability and know the more urgent the disability earlier.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an electronic mail system for promptly notifying an administrator of a failure that occurs during electronic mail transmission so that the administrator can efficiently manage the system.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art With the spread of computers in recent years, electronic mail systems that use computers as communication means have been widely used, and system management thereof, particularly fault detection and coping therewith, has been emphasized.

The system management of the conventional electronic mail system will be described below. FIG. 7 is a block diagram of an apparatus for transferring an electronic mail and an apparatus for receiving an electronic mail, which are connected by a network in a conventional electronic mail system.

In FIG. 7, 07 is a network and 07
0 is an electronic mail transfer device for transferring electronic mail, 071
Is an electronic mail receiving device for receiving electronic mail. The electronic mail transfer device 070 includes a transfer mail receiving unit 0700 that receives a transfer mail, a transfer mail storage unit 0701 that stores the received transfer mail, a transfer mail transmitting unit 07020 that transmits the transfer mail, and a failure that occurs during transfer. A transfer mail transmitting unit 0702 including a failure detecting unit 07021 for detecting and a failure notification message creating unit 070 for creating a message indicating a failure content occurred during transfer.
30 and a fault notifying section 070 comprising a fault recording means 07031 for recording the message created by the means.
It consists of three.

Further, the electronic mail receiving device 071 has an electronic mail receiving section 0710 for receiving electronic mail, an electronic mail storing section 0711 for storing the received electronic mail, and an electronic mail list displaying means 071 for displaying a list of the electronic mails.
20 and an electronic mail display unit 0712 including an electronic mail content display means 07121 for displaying the contents of the electronic mail.
It is composed by.

The operation of the electronic mail system configured as above will be described below. First, in the electronic mail transfer device 070, a flow of processing from when a failure is detected at the time of sending a transfer mail, a failure notification message is created and the message is output will be described with reference to FIG.

First, in the electronic mail transfer device 070, when the electronic mail to be transferred is received by the transferred mail receiving unit 0700 (step 080), it is stored in the transferred mail storage unit 0701 (step 081), and is transferred by the transferred mail transmitting unit 0702. The data is transmitted to the transfer destination (step 082). At this time, if the transmission fails (step 083), the failure detecting means 0
The 7021 determines that some failure has occurred in the transfer destination, and detects the cause of the failure (step 084).
When a failure is detected by the failure detecting means 07021, the failure notification message creating means 07030 creates a failure notification message stating the cause of the failure and a method for coping with it (step 085). Then, the fault recording means 070
31 outputs the created failure notification message to the system console, failure log, printer, etc. (step 086).

Next, the flow of processing when the electronic mail receiving device 071 receives an electronic mail will be described with reference to FIG. When the email receiving device 071 receives the delivered email at the email receiving unit 0710,
(Step 090), store in the email storage unit 0711
(Step 091), the electronic mail list is displayed through the electronic mail list display means 07120 of the electronic mail display unit 0712 (Step 092), and the user of the electronic mail receiving apparatus 071 requests the display of the contents of the electronic mail. (Step 093), the e-mail content display means 0712
Display the contents of the e-mail using 1 (step 09)
4).

There are direct means and indirect means for the administrator to know the occurrence of a failure. For example, the direct means may be the console of the e-mail system in which the failure notification message is output, the failure log, the means of going to the place where the printer is installed, and the indirect means may be the complaint of the user of the e-mail system. There is a means to listen to.

[0010]

However, in the above-mentioned conventional configuration, the administrator cannot know the fault except the place where the fault notification message is output, the console of the electronic mail system, the fault log, and the printer. Since it is not possible, an administrator who is connected to the WAN (Wide Area Netwark), for example, an administrator who is far from the actual operating environment, such as a maintenance person of the manufacturer of the e-mail system, cannot know the failure one by one. Had a problem.

Further, even if the administrator detects the occurrence of a failure,
There is also a problem that the failure cannot be efficiently managed because there is no means for organizing the content of the failure.

The present invention solves the above conventional problems, and provides an electronic mail system in which an administrator can sequentially detect the occurrence of a failure even from a remote location and can efficiently manage the details of the failure. To aim.

[0013]

In order to achieve this object, the electronic mail system of the present invention comprises, firstly, means for detecting a failure that occurs during transmission of an electronic mail, and a failure detected by the means. It has a configuration including means for creating an electronic mail indicating the content and means for transmitting the created electronic mail to the administrator as a failure notification mail.

Secondly, in addition to the first component, it is provided with a means for adding the importance of the failure to the failure notification mail.

Thirdly, in addition to the first component, there is provided a means for adding a priority to the failure notification mail delivered to the administrator according to the size of the failure.

Fourthly, in addition to the first component, means for identifying a failure notification mail from a plurality of electronic mails delivered to an administrator, means for storing the failure notification mail identified by the means, The configuration includes a means for displaying a list of failure notification mails.

Fifth, in addition to the second component, means for detecting the failure notification mail of the highest importance from a plurality of e-mails distributed to the manager, and the result detected by the means are managed by the manager. Is configured to include means for notifying the user.

Sixth, in addition to the second component, means for totaling the total occurrence frequency of a plurality of failure notification mails distributed to the manager, and notifying the manager of the results detected by the means. It has a configuration including means.

[0019]

The present invention has the following six actions due to the above-mentioned constitution. (1) In the e-mail transfer device, the e-mail is used to notify the administrator of the failure, so that the administrator can sequentially know the occurrence of the failure even in a remote place. (2) In the electronic mail transfer device, by adding the importance of the failure to the failure notification mail, the administrator can easily understand the content of the failure and the degree of the failure. (3) In the e-mail transfer device, by adding the distribution priority to the failure notification mail, the administrator can know the failure as soon as possible. (4) In the e-mail receiving device, the failure notification mail and the other e-mails are expressed separately, so that the administrator can easily distinguish between the two. (5) In the e-mail receiving device, the failure notification mail with the highest importance is automatically extracted from a plurality of e-mails and notified, so that the administrator can handle the failure with the highest importance without fail. can do. (6) In the e-mail receiving device, the administrator can efficiently manage the failure by notifying the cumulative failure frequency indicated by the failure notification mail and the current failure occurrence status.

[0020]

【Example】

(First Embodiment) A first embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a configuration of an electronic mail transfer device and an electronic mail receiving device connected by a network in an electronic mail system.

In FIG. 1, 01 is a network, 010 is an electronic mail transfer device for transferring electronic mail, and 011 is an electronic mail receiving device for receiving electronic mail. The electronic mail transfer device 010 includes a transfer mail receiving unit 0100 for receiving a transfer mail, a transfer mail storing unit 0101 for storing the received transfer mail, a transfer mail transmitting unit 0102 for transmitting the transfer mail, and a failure content administrator The failure notification unit 0103 that notifies the The transfer mail transmission unit 0102 has a transfer mail transmission unit 01020 for transmitting a transfer mail and a failure detection unit 01021 for detecting a failure occurring during transfer. The failure notification unit 0103 has a failure content generated during transfer and its importance. Defect notification mail creation means 010 with failure importance and distribution priority for creating an e-mail with the degree and distribution priority added
30, failure recording means 01031 for recording the contents of the failure notification mail created by the above means and failure notification mail sending means 010 for sending the failure notification mail to the administrator
Has 32.

Further, the electronic mail receiving device 011 has an electronic mail receiving section 0110 for receiving electronic mail, an electronic mail storing section 0111 for storing the received electronic mail, and an electronic mail list displaying means 011 for displaying a list of the electronic mails.
20 and an electronic mail display section 0112 including an electronic mail content display means 01121 for displaying the contents of the electronic mail.
It is composed by.

In FIG. 1, the e-mail transfer device 010 and the e-mail reception device 011 connected by the network 01 are constituted by one set, but may be constituted by a plurality. In addition, the network 01 is a LAN (Local Ar
ea Network) or WAN (Wide Area Network).

The operation of the electronic mail system configured as described above will be described below. First, the flow of processing from the electronic mail transfer device 010 detecting a failure during transfer mail transmission to creating and transmitting a failure notification mail with failure importance and delivery priority will be described with reference to FIG.

When the transfer mail receiving unit 0100 receives the electronic mail to be transferred (step 020), the electronic mail transfer device 010 stores it in the transfer mail storage unit 0101.
(Step 021), and the transfer mail transmission unit 0102 transmits it to the transfer destination (step 022). Then, when the e-mail transfer device 010 confirms that the transfer e-mail has been successfully transmitted (step 023), the e-mail transfer device 010 enters a waiting state for the transfer e-mail (step 020).

At this time, the electronic mail transfer device 010
When it is confirmed that the transmission of the transfer mail has failed (step 023), it is considered that some failure has occurred in the transfer destination, and the failure detection means 01021 is used to detect the cause of the failure (step 024). By the failure notification mail creation means 01030 with failure importance and delivery priority,
A failure notification mail with failure importance and distribution priority is created (step 025). The failure notification mail with means of failure importance and delivery priority creation unit 01030 uses the table shown in FIG. 3 in order to determine the content of the failure notification mail, the failure importance, and the delivery priority.

FIG. 3 is an example of a table for referring to the failure importance 030, the failure priority 031, the delivery priority 032, and the message content 033 indicating the failure content from the failure content 030. In FIG. 3, the failure priority 031 and the delivery priority 03
2 is divided into 3 stages, for example, in order from the one with the highest severity of failure, (1) A: fatal failure related to the hardware and software inside (2) B: fatal failure related to the resources and environment of the electronic mail system. Failure (3) C: It is a failure that can be automatically restored and prevented from expanding.

Also, for example, in order from the highest distribution priority, (1) HIGH: distribution speed is urgent (2) NORMAL: distribution speed is normal (3) LOW: distribution speed is urgent.

For example, if the failure detection unit 01021 determines that the failure content 030 is "memory shortage" at the transfer destination, the failure priority 031 is B and the delivery priority 032 is set.
Is HIGH, and the message content is "The other party XX cannot be delivered because the memory is currently insufficient. Please eliminate the memory shortage of the other party XX." The failure importance 031 and the delivery priority 032 are added to the failure notification mail. Then, the fault notification mail transmitting means 01032
According to the delivery priority 032 of the failure notification mail,
Send a failure notification email to the administrator (step 02
6). At this time, if the failure notification mail is successfully sent to the administrator (step 027), the transfer mail is awaited (step 020), and if the failure is unsuccessful (step 027), the failure recording means 01031 is used as in the conventional example. Then, the contents of the fault notification mail with the fault importance and the delivery priority are output to the console of the electronic mail system, the fault log, and the printer (step 028).

Note that the electronic mail creating means 01030 with failure importance and delivery priority can also be created by a method other than table reference. When using a table, the structure and contents of the table are free.

Next, the flow of processing when the electronic mail receiving device 011 receives an electronic mail will be described with reference to FIG. When the email receiving device 011 receives the delivered email at the email receiving unit 0110,
(Step 040), store in the email storage unit 0111
(Step 041), when an electronic mail list is displayed via the electronic mail list display means 01120 of the electronic mail display unit 0112 (Step 042), and the user of the electronic mail receiving apparatus 011 requests the display of the contents of the electronic mail. (Step 043), the e-mail content display means 0112
Display the content of the email using 1 (step 04
4).

At this time, the operation until the administrator deals with the failure will be described. First, the administrator requests the failure notification mail displayed by the electronic mail list display means 01120 to display the contents by using the electronic mail content display means 01121. As a result, the administrator can deal with the failure by referring to the content of the displayed failure notification mail.

As described above, according to this embodiment, firstly,
A means for detecting a failure occurring during transmission of an email in an electronic mail system, a means for creating an email indicating the details of the failure detected by the means, and an administrator using the created email as a failure notification mail By providing a means for transmitting to the system, it becomes possible for the administrator to sequentially know the occurrence of system failure even in a remote place.

Second, by providing the first electronic mail system with means for adding the importance of the failure to the failure notification mail, the administrator can easily understand the importance of the failure. In addition, by providing the second e-mail system with means for adding a priority according to the degree of failure of the failure notification mail to be delivered to the administrator, the administrator can know the more urgent the failure earlier. Become. Therefore, it is possible to significantly reduce the burden on the administrator to deal with the failure and improve the efficiency of system management.

(Second Embodiment) A second embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 5 is a block diagram showing a configuration of an electronic mail transfer apparatus and an electronic mail receiving apparatus connected to each other by a network in the electronic mail system.

In FIG. 5, reference numeral 050 is an electronic mail transfer device for transferring electronic mail, and its configuration is the same as that of the first embodiment. Reference numeral 051 denotes an e-mail receiving device that receives e-mail, and an e-mail receiving unit 0510 that receives an e-mail, an e-mail storage unit 0511 that stores the received e-mail, a failure frequency indicated by the failure notification mail, and Failure notification email with the highest severity of failure
(Hereinafter, referred to as "most important failure notification mail") automatically detects failure notification mail importance aggregation section 0512, failure notification mail incoming notification section 05 for notifying the administrator of the result of the means.
13. The most important failure notification mail confirmation unit 0514 for confirming that the user has referred to the most important failure notification mail, and the electronic mail display unit 0515 for displaying the list and contents of the electronic mails stored in the electronic mail storage unit 0511. It is composed of.

The e-mail receiving section 0510 includes a failure notification mail identifying means 05100 for identifying a failure notification mail and other e-mails (hereinafter referred to as general e-mails). General electronic mail storage unit 05110 for storing general electronic mail and failure notification mail storage unit 05 for storing failure notification mail
It has 111. Failure notification email importance aggregation section 05
12 is the cumulative total of occurrence frequencies of failures indicated by the failure notification mail,
The failure notification mail importance counting means 05120 for totaling the occurrence status of the current failures and the most important failure notification mail detection means 05121 for detecting the most important failure notification mail requiring urgentness from a plurality of failure notification mails are provided. The notification unit 0513 includes a failure notification mail importance level summing unit 05120 and a most important failure notification mail detection unit 05.
121 aggregated information notifying means 05130 for notifying the administrator of the result 121 and most important failure notification mail notifying means 05
It consists of 131.

The electronic mail display unit 0515 also displays a general electronic mail list display means 0515 for displaying a list of electronic mails stored in the general electronic mail storage unit 05110.
0, failure notification mail list display means 0 for displaying a list of e-mails stored in the failure notification mail storage unit 05111
5150, an email content display means 05152 for displaying the content of the email designated by the user from the two list display means.

In FIG. 5, the network 05, the electronic mail transfer device 050, and the electronic mail receiving device 051.
Is composed of one set, but may be composed of a plurality. The network 05 is a LAN (Local Area Network).
rk) or WAN (Wide Area Network).

The operation of the electronic mail system configured as described above will be described below. The processing flow of the electronic mail transfer device 050 is the same as the processing flow of the electronic mail transfer device 010 in the first embodiment.

Next, the flow of processing when the electronic mail receiving device 051 receives a failure notification mail with failure importance and delivery priority will be described with reference to FIG.

First, the electronic mail receiving device 051 transmits the electronic mail received by the electronic mail receiving part 0510 (step 060) from the electronic mail transfer device 050 to the administrator by using the fault notification mail identifying means 05100. By distinguishing the general electronic mail from the failure notification mail by setting the electronic mail as the failure notification mail (step 061),
The information is stored in the general electronic mail storage unit 05110 and the failure notification mail storage unit 05111 (steps 062, 061).
1). If the most important failure notification mail detection unit 05121 has the most important failure notification mail from the failure notification mail storage unit 05111 (step 063), the most important failure notification mail notification unit 05131 beeps until the administrator confirms its existence. E-mail content display means 0
Display the contents of failure notification mail using 5152
(Step 064).

The administrator knows the arrival of the most important failure notification mail by the beep sound generated by the most important failure notification mail notifying means 05131. At this time, if it is confirmed by the most important failure notification mail confirmation unit 0514 that the administrator has referred to the content of the most important failure notification mail (step 065),
It is possible to proceed to the next step 063. If there is no most important failure notification mail in the failure notification mail storage unit 05111, the failure notification mail importance level summing unit 05120 causes the failure notification mail storage unit 05111 to accumulate the failure frequency up to now and the current failure frequency of the emails stored in the failure notification mail storage unit 05111. The failure occurrence status is calculated (step 066).

Then, importance level information notifying means 0513
0 notifies the administrator of the result of step 66 (step 067). For example, as a method therefor, there is a method of displaying on a display how many degrees of importance each failure notification mail has.

Next, a list of fault e-mails stored in the fault notification mail storage unit 05111 is displayed by the fault e-mail list display means 05151 in a format in which the importance of the fault is explicitly shown. (Step 068). The list of general electronic mails stored in the general electronic mail storage unit 06110 is displayed on the display by the general electronic mail list display stage 05150 (step 0612).

For example, the display contents of the failure notification mail list are the title of the failure notification mail, the sender, the sending party, the transmission date and time, the delivery priority and the importance of the failure, and the display contents of the general electronic mail list are electronic mails. There is a mail title, sender, and date and time of sending. Further, both lists are displayed independently on the display. E-mail receiving device 05
When the administrator who is the user requests to display the content of a certain e-mail from one of the list displays in 1,
(Steps 069 and 0613), the electronic mail content display means 05152 displays the content of the electronic mail whose content display is requested (Steps 0610 and 0614). As long as the administrator requests the display of the content of the email, the content of the email is displayed.

Here, the most important failure notification mail notifying means 05131 notifies the administrator of the existence of the most important failure notification mail by displaying a beep sound and the contents of the most important failure notification mail. The method of is also good.

Finally, the operation until the administrator confirms the arrival of the fault notification mail and deals with the fault will be described. When the administrator is notified by the e-mail receiving device 051 that the most important failure notification mail has been received, the administrator refers to the content and handles the failure. This operation is repeated as long as the most important failure notification mail is stored in the failure notification mail storage unit 05111. At this time, the failure notification mail storage unit 05
If the most important failure notification mail is not stored in 111, the administrator specifies what is considered to be important from the failure notification mail list based on the incoming status of the failure notification mail displayed by the importance aggregation information notification means 05130. , Refer to the contents and deal with the failure.

As described above, according to this embodiment, firstly,
A means for detecting a failure occurring during transmission of an email in an electronic mail system, a means for creating an email indicating the details of the failure detected by the means, and an administrator using the created email as a failure notification mail By providing a means for transmitting to the system, it becomes possible for the administrator to sequentially know the occurrence of system failure even in a remote place.

Second, by providing the electronic mail system with means for adding the importance of the failure to the failure notification mail, the administrator can easily understand the importance of the failure.

Thirdly, by providing the second electronic mail system with means for adding a priority according to the degree of failure of the failure notification mail delivered to the administrator, the administrator knows the more urgent the failure earlier. Will be able to.

Fourth, in the third electronic mail system, a means for identifying a failure notification mail from a plurality of electronic mails delivered to the administrator, a means for storing the failure notification mail identified thereby, and a failure. By providing the means for displaying the list of the notification mails, the administrator can easily distinguish the failure notification mails from the general electronic mails.

Fifth, the fourth electronic mail system is provided with means for detecting a failure notification mail having the highest degree of importance of failure from a plurality of electronic mails delivered to the administrator, and a result detected by the means. By providing a means for notifying the administrator, the administrator can check without missing the most important failure notification mail.

Sixth, the fifth electronic mail system is provided with means for totaling the total frequency of occurrence of a plurality of failure notification mails distributed to the manager, and means for notifying the manager of the totaled result. This allows the administrator to easily understand and manage the cumulative occurrence frequency of failures and the current occurrence status.

As described above, according to the present embodiment, it is possible to significantly reduce the burden on the administrator until he or she deals with the fault, and further improve the efficiency of system management.

[0056]

As described above, according to the present invention, means for detecting a failure occurring during transmission of an electronic mail, means for creating an electronic mail indicating the details of the failure detected by the means, and the created electronic mail A means for sending an email as an error notification email to an administrator, a method for adding the importance of an error to an error notification email, a method for adding a priority to an error notification email delivered to an administrator according to the degree of an error, and a management Means for identifying a failure notification mail from a plurality of e-mails delivered to a person, means for storing the failure notification mail identified thereby, means for displaying a list of failure notification mails,
A means for detecting a failure notification mail having the highest degree of failure importance from a plurality of e-mails delivered to the administrator, a means for aggregating the total occurrence frequency of the failure notification mails delivered to the administrator, and By providing the e-mail system with means for notifying the administrator of the results detected by the two means, the administrator can successively detect the occurrence of a failure even from a remote place, and can efficiently manage the failure content. It is possible to realize an electronic mail system.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a conceptual diagram showing a configuration of an electronic mail system according to a first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing the operation of the electronic mail transfer device according to the first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a data diagram used by the failure notification mail creating means in the first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing the operation of the electronic mail receiving apparatus according to the first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a conceptual diagram showing a configuration of an electronic mail system according to a second embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart showing the operation of the electronic mail receiving apparatus according to the second embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 7 is a conceptual diagram showing a configuration of an electronic mail system in a conventional example.

FIG. 8 is a flowchart showing the operation of an electronic mail transfer device in a conventional example.

FIG. 9 is a flowchart showing the operation of the conventional electronic mail receiving device.

[Explanation of symbols]

01 network 010 e-mail transfer device 0100 transfer mail receiving unit 0101 transfer mail storage unit 0102 transfer mail sending unit 01020 transfer mail sending unit 01021 failure detection unit 0103 failure notification unit 01030 failure notification mail creation unit with failure priority and delivery priority 01031 Fault recording means 01032 Fault notification mail transmitting means 011 E-mail receiving device 0110 E-mail receiving part 0111 E-mail storing part 0112 E-mail displaying part 01120 E-mail list displaying means 01121 E-mail content displaying means 05 Network 050 E-mail transferring device 0500 Transfer Mail receiving unit 0501 Transfer mail storing unit 0502 Transfer mail sending unit 05020 Transfer mail sending unit 05021 Failure detection unit 0503 Failure notification Part 05030 Failure notification mail creation means with failure importance and delivery priority 05031 Failure recording means 05032 Failure notification mail sending means 051 E-mail receiving device 0510 E-mail receiving part 05100 Failure notification e-mail identifying means 0511 E-mail storage part 05110 General e-mail Storage section 05111 Failure notification mail storage section 0512 Failure notification mail importance level counting section 05120 Failure notification mail importance level counting means 05121 Most important failure notification mail detecting means 0513 Failure notification mail importance level counting section 05130 Importance level information notification means 05131 Most important Failure notification mail notification means 0514 Most important failure notification mail confirmation section 0515 E-mail display section 05150 General electronic mail list display means 05151 Failure notification mail list display means 05152 Electronic Email content display means

Claims (6)

[Claims] 1. A means for detecting a failure occurring during transmission of an electronic mail, a means for creating an electronic mail indicating the details of the failure detected by the means, and an administrator using the created electronic mail as a failure notification mail. An electronic mail system comprising means for sending to an electronic mail system. 2. The electronic mail system according to claim 1,
An electronic mail system comprising means for adding the importance of a failure to a failure notification mail. 3. The electronic mail system according to claim 1,
An electronic mail system comprising means for adding priority to a failure notification mail delivered to an administrator according to the size of the failure. 4. The electronic mail system according to claim 1,
A means for identifying a failure notification mail from a plurality of e-mails delivered to the administrator, means for storing the failure notification mail identified by the means, and means for displaying a list of the failure notification mails. E-mail system to do. 5. The electronic mail system according to claim 2,
An electronic mail comprising means for detecting a failure notification mail having the highest degree of importance of failure from a plurality of electronic mails delivered to the administrator, and means for notifying the administrator of the result detected by the means. system. 6. The electronic mail system according to claim 2,
An electronic mail system comprising: means for totaling the cumulative occurrence frequencies of a plurality of failure notification mails delivered to an administrator; and means for notifying the administrator of the results of totaling by the means.