Patent ID: 8102761

Claim:
A path control device which controls a path for transmitting data from a transmission terminal to a reception terminal through relays, said path control device comprising: a path information generating unit configured to generate path information indicating paths for transmitting the data from the transmission terminal to the reception terminal; a path malfunction predicting unit configured to predict a malfunction of each of the relays, using the number of flows as a malfunction occurrence likelihood value which represents a likelihood of a malfunction of the relay, including a degradation in transmission quality and increased load, each of the flows being a sequence of one or more packets to be relayed from one transmission source to one destination by the relay which is a candidate for monitoring, wherein at least one candidate for monitoring is determined for each path indicated by the path information; and a bypass path selecting unit configured to select, based on the malfunction occurrence likelihood value, a path that should be used for transmitting the data from the transmission terminal to the reception terminal.