Patent ID: 6904467

Claim:
A network system that having a plurality of network segments, the network system comprising: a plurality of process portions for information processing and that connect the network segments and that can mutually send and receive a message and that can change states to either of first and second states, so as to form a first-state process portion and a second-state process portion, respectively, wherein a group is made up of the process portions connecting one or more network segments; only the one process portion in the group is in the first state and the other process portions in the group are in the second state; the first-state process portion stores information of the second-state process portions; each of the second-state process portions stores information of the first-state process portion, wherein there is only one process portion in the first state within a first group and a second group is determined by exchanging messages between the first-state process portion of the first group and the first-state process portion of the second group, and a third group consists of process portions of the first group and process portions of the second group, wherein the process portion determined as the first-state process portion remains in the first state and the process portions not determined are changed into the second state.