Patent ID: 8076961

Claim:
A monitoring apparatus for monitoring a system that includes an oscillator having a variable oscillation frequency, comprising: a storing unit configured to store a reference value of state information of the system, including at least frequency information related to an oscillation frequency of the oscillator, and changing amount information, including at least changing amount information related to an anticipated changing amount of the oscillation frequency the oscillator due to aging of the oscillator; a transmitting unit configured to transmit an information collecting instruction for collecting the state information of the system to the system at an arbitrary monitoring timing; and a control unit configured to perform a control operation that includes transmitting to the system control information for controlling the oscillation frequency to become the reference value or less if the oscillation frequency exceeds the reference value, based on a result of comparing state information collected and received from the system and the reference value of the state information stored in the storing unit, computing the changing amount of the oscillation frequency at least due to aging based on a result of comparing state information collected at a previous monitoring timing and state information collected at a present monitoring timing and the changing amount information stored in the storing unit, and computing a next monitoring timing based on the computed changing amount of the oscillation frequency and storing this next monitoring timing in the storing unit.