Patent ID: 8588236

Claim:
A virtual network management server that sets up a virtual network for communicating between a gateway and a base station through one or a plurality of rings in a network where a frame is transmitted and received among only a plurality of selected devices within the network by using a virtual network, and a communication range is virtually divided by a virtual network identifier stored in a frame header and a ring connects to the gateway and/or the base station and is configured by a plurality of nodes which are allocated in ring form, the virtual network management server comprising: a ring node information storage region in which the combination of a ring identifier and node identifiers of the nodes that configure the ring are stored; and a processing unit, wherein the processing unit designates a first node identifier of a first node that is connected with the gateway, and a second node identifier of a second node that is connected with the base station, wherein the processing unit specifies a node identifier belonging to the same ring as that of the first node of the designated first node identifier, and a node identifier belonging to the same ring as that of the second node of the designated second node identifier with reference to the ring node information storage region, and wherein the processing unit transmits a setup instruction for setting up the virtual network between the gateway and the base station to the respective nodes indicated by the specified node identifiers.