Patent ID: 7913290

Claim:
A device management apparatus, comprising: a device configuration information holding unit configured to hold configuration information of a device which identifies a configuration of the device; a subscriber information holding unit configured to hold subscriber information of a service which identifies a subscriber of a service; a security policy holding unit configured to hold a security policy which identifies a type of configuration of the device and/or subscriber information, and indicates a necessity of a module for the type of configuration of the device, the module being configured to perform a type of security protection of the device; a module state holding unit configured to hold module state information acquired from the device which shows a type of module at the device and a test result of the module at the device, the test result being the result of a test regarding whether a module at the device operates normally or not, wherein the test includes calling a self-test procedure inside the module, checking falsification of an execution image of software inside the device, checking a log outputted by the module, and checking a process corresponding to the module; and a device diagnosis unit configured to examine the availability of the device by comparing the necessity of the module at the device for the type of configuration of the device indicated by the security policy with the module state information and the test result, and based on the comparison the device diagnosis unit is configured to allow service to be provided to the device when the module state information satisfies the security policy, and to not allow service to be provided to the device when the module state information does not satisfy the security policy, wherein the module state information does not satisfy the security policy when the result of the test is that the module does not operate normally and the necessity of the module indicates that the module is required, the module state information does satisfy the security policy when the result of the test indicates that the module operates normally and the necessity of the module indicates that the module is required, and the module state information does satisfy the security policy when the result of the test indicates that the module does not operate normally and the necessity of the module indicates that the module is not required.