Patent ID: 8370418

Claim:
A relay apparatus for transferring message data received from a client to one of a plurality of servers, the relay apparatus comprising: a status management data storage configured to hold data of an acknowledgment necessity table, the acknowledgment necessity table including first identification information of a first apparatus to which the relay apparatus acknowledges when the relay apparatus has received first transfer rule notification data from the first apparatus, the first apparatus being one of a plurality of relay apparatuses each of which broadcasts transfer rule notification data; and a processor, the processor comprising: a transfer rule handling section configured to determine whether the acknowledgment necessity table includes the first identification information identical to second identification information of a second apparatus upon receiving second transfer rule notification data from the second apparatus, the second apparatus being one of the plurality of relay apparatuses; an acknowledgment transmitting section configured to transmit acknowledgment data to the second apparatus when the acknowledgment necessity table includes the first identification information identical to the second identification information, wherein the transfer rule notification data includes transfer destination information, the transfer destination information including identifier data and address data, the address data being of a server to which the message data including the identifier data is transferred; a transfer rule storage configured to hold the transfer destination information; a rule checking section configured to extract, upon receiving the message data from the client, first identifier data from the received message data to determine whether the transfer rule storage holds first transfer destination information including the first identifier data; a transfer rule generating section configured to determine, when the transfer rule storage does not hold the first transfer destination information, a first server to which message data including the first identifier data is transmitted, and store second transfer destination information including the first identifier data and first address data of the first server; and a broadcasting section configured to broadcast the transfer rule notification data including the second transfer destination information to the plurality of relay apparatuses.