Patent ID: 8005938

Claim:
A management method for managing a network comprising a plurality of network elements, comprising: assigning, as a target ID identifying each network element forming a management network, the target ID including as part of it a group ID indicating belonging to a certain group to each network element forming the management network; having each network element advertise advertisement information including the group ID to the entire management network; having each network element extract a group ID included in the advertisement information when receiving the advertisement information, authorize access from a network element of a source of the received advertisement information when the group ID matches the group ID contained in the target ID assigned to its own network element, and not authorize access from a network element of a source of the received advertisement information when it does not match and having each network element forming the management network calculate a route only for network elements registered at the authorized side of the access authorization list if the access authorization list is valid and calculate a route for all network elements forming the management network if the access authorization list invalid.