Patent ID: 8190721

Claim:
An equipment set generation support apparatus comprising: an acquisition unit configured to acquire, from a plurality of equipments connected to a network, state change event information notifying a new state after a state change of each equipment and an occurrence time and date of the state change; a setting unit configured to set a detection condition including a start time and an end time of a detection period; a selection unit configured to select state change event information whose occurrence time and date of the state change falling within the detection period from the state change event information acquired by the acquisition unit; a first detection unit configured to detect, from the plurality of equipments, a set of equipments whose states change in the detection period and a set of state values after the state change of each equipment by comparing a start state at the start time of the detection period with an end state at the end time of the detection period based on the state change event information selected by the selection unit; a re-creation unit configured to re-create the set of state values in the set of equipment; and a second detection unit configured to detect, from the state change event information acquired by the acquisition unit after re-creating the set of state values in the set of equipments by the re-creation unit, a new state change other than state changes which occurs as a result of the re-creating the set of state values, to obtain a equipment in which the new state change occurred and the state value of the equipment.