Patent ID: 7756971

Claim:
A data-processing apparatus communicatively connected to a data-processing system, the data-processing system having at least one computer executing at least one application program and at least one storage device storing data, the at least one computer and the at least one storage device being communicatively connected via a plurality of data transfer paths respectively assigned to a plurality of application programs, each data transfer path comprising a plurality of components, the data-processing apparatus comprising: a system configuration storage unit storing, in a correlated manner, each component and an application program using one of the plurality of data transfer paths including the correlated component; an abnormality detection information reception unit receiving abnormality detection information indicating that an abnormality is detected while executing an application program, from the at least one computer; an inspection target selection unit selecting an inspection target from the plurality of components as part of a sequence of detecting an abnormal target, wherein the component selected as the inspection target is the component that is correlated with the largest number of application programs, the inspection target selection unit further selecting as a next inspection target a different component, wherein if no abnormality is detected in the component selected as the inspection target, the inspection target selection unit selects as a next inspection target a component that is correlated with the largest number of application programs from the plurality of components that are on the same data transfer path between the component selected as the inspection target and the at least one computer, and wherein if an abnormality is detected in the component selected as the inspection target, the inspection target selection unit selects as a next inspection target a component that is correlated with the largest number of application programs from the plurality of components that are on the same data transfer path between the component selected as the inspection target, and the at least one storage device; and an inspection result storage unit storing a result of inspection for the component selected as the inspection target.