Patent ID: 8868729

Claim:
An information collection device that acquires information from a plurality of servers connected through a network, comprising: a computer processor, wherein the computer processor executes a process comprising: storing collection history information and collection item information for the plurality of servers; calculating, for each server of the plurality of servers, an estimated delay time of the server based on an average delay time of all collection items recorded in the collection history information of the server; calculating, for each collection item of a respective server, a frequency of change for the collection item by dividing a number of times the collection item has been acquired by a number of times the collection item has changed recorded in the collection item information of the respective server; adding, for each server of the plurality of servers, the estimated delay time of the server to a stored maximum collection duration, representing a longest duration of time required to collect a collection item from the server, to determine a notification duration; adding a longest notification duration of the determined notification durations of the plurality of servers to a current time to determine a data acquisition time; subtracting, for each collection item, a collection duration, representing a duration of time required to collect the collection item, from the data acquisition time to obtain and set a collection start time for the collection item; creating a collection schedule indicating the collection start time and a collection order of each collection item to collect from each server, wherein the collection order for each server is arranged based on the collection start times of the collection items and wherein collection items having the same collection start time are sorted in descending order of their frequency of change; and performing information collection from the plurality of servers based on the collection order, wherein the information collection for a particular collection item starts at the respective collection start time of the particular collection item.