Patent ID: 8010675

Claim:
A relay server connected to a first LAN and arranged to communicate via a WAN with another relay server connected to a second LAN, the relay server comprising: an account information registration unit arranged to store account information about a client terminal connected to the first LAN; a relay group information registration unit arranged to store relay group information including information about the relay server and the another relay server and account information about a client terminal connected to each of the relay server and the another relay server via the first and second LANs, respectively; a shared resource information registration unit arranged to store shared resource information including: the name of a file or a folder defining a resource; information about an owner client terminal which is a client terminal capable of operating the resource; information about resource sharing client terminals that share the resource; and message information about a notification message to be exchanged between the resource sharing client terminals; an operation instruction relay processing unit arranged to, when receiving an operation instruction for the resource from one of the resource sharing client terminals, specify the owner client terminal based on the shared resource information, specify a relay server connected to the specified owner client terminal based on the relay group information; and relay the operation instruction to the specified relay server; and a control unit arranged to, when receiving the operation instruction for the resource from the one of the resource sharing client terminals, add to the shared resource information, information about the one of the resource sharing client terminals and notification message information about the operation instruction for the resource, and notify at least another one of the resource sharing client terminals of the addition of the notification message information.