Patent ID: 6947964

Claim:
A network device having a plurality of controllers connected to a network, comprising: a plurality of databases disposed in distributed fashion on respective ones of the plurality of controllers and storing management information relating to respective ones of the controllers; and a plurality of agents distributed on the plurality of controllers, wherein each of the plurality of agents has communication means, means for executing distributed processing of messages issued from a network manager which manages the network, and means for generating responses to these messages, wherein at least one agent among the plurality of agents functions as a master agent and the other agents function as subagents, and wherein the master agent comprises: means for communicating with the network manager using a protocol for exchanging management information between the network manager and the plurality of controllers to separate a message issued from the network manager into a first message including management information to be processed by the master agent and a second message including management information other than the management information to be processed by a subagent; response generating means for generating response information with regard to the first message to be responded to the network manager; and means for notifying subagents of the second message.