Patent ID: 7624404

Claim:
A service request apparatus including an application using, among a plurality of services, a service provided by another apparatus by connecting to the another apparatus through a network, the service request apparatus comprising: a processor determining a communication method from a plurality of communication methods to call the service in response to a call request for calling a method with respect to the service based on communication method definition information stored in a memory of the service request apparatus, the communication method definition information specifying a communication method for each service, the call request being sent from the application, conducting a remote call of the method in response to the call request from the application based on the determined communication method, and switching to another communication method from the plurality of communication methods until the remote call is successfully conducted, when the communication method definition information does not specify the communication method to call the service, wherein the call request of the method with respect to the service from the application includes information indicating a method identification name and a URI specifying the service; the remote call is made based on a default communication method when the communication method to call the service is not defined in the communication method definition information; and when the communication method to call the service is not defined in the communication method definition information and the remote call succeeds by the default communication method, the default communication method used for the remote call is registered to the communication method definition information by associating with the service.