Patent ID: 7089067

Claim:
A device control system for controlling a first device that stores data and a second device that is capable of processing the data, said device control system comprising: two device abstraction units that respectively correspond to one of the first and second devices and transmit data or information to and from the corresponding device; a plurality of interface units that respectively correspond to the two device abstraction units and each interface unit is connected to the corresponding device abstraction unit via communications paths, the interface unit mediating transmission of data or information between the corresponding device abstraction units and an application unit, that receives instructions from a user; and a plurality of communications path abstraction units, each communications path abstraction unit being respectively interposed between the two device abstraction units and the interface units, which mutually correspond to each other; wherein the device abstraction units remove a difference in control procedure due to a type of the corresponding devices, so as to provide the application units with an identical control environment, which does not depend upon the type of the devices, via the interface units, and the communications path abstraction units remove a difference in control procedure due to a type of the communications paths, which connects each of the respective device abstraction units with the corresponding interface units, so as to provide the application units with an identical control environment, which does not depend upon the type of the communications paths, via the interface units.