Patent ID: 8850184

Claim:
A transmission management apparatus, comprising: a receiving circuit that receives, from a first transmission terminal being one of transmission terminals connected to a network, a communication request for a communication with a second transmission terminal among the transmission terminals, terminal identification information for identifying the first transmission terminal, and terminal identification for identifying the second transmission terminal; a first memory that stores therein terminal identification information for identifying the transmission terminals and relay device identification information for identifying a relay device in an associated manner, the relay device being connected to the network and configured to relay data transmitted and received by the first transmission terminal; a processor that selects a relay device associated with the terminal identification information of the first transmission terminal in the first memory; a second memory that stores therein the relay device identification information in association with encryption necessity information indicating whether it is necessary to encrypt data to be transmitted and received by the relay device identified by the relay device identification information, wherein the processor determines whether encryption is needed based on the encryption necessity information, which is obtained based only on the relay device identification information of the relay device selected by the processor; and a transmitting circuit that transmits a determination result obtained by the processor to the first transmission terminal and the second transmission terminal, wherein the first transmission terminal and the second transmission terminal transmit data to the selected relay device based on the determination result.