Patent ID: 7376725

Claim:
An access control system comprising: a first network device group including a first representative network device and one or more dependent network devices; a second network device group including a second representative network device and one or more of said dependent network devices; and a device management terminal managing said network devices; said first network device group, said second network device group and said device management terminal being connected so that communications can be carried out, said first and second representative network devices collect management information of a plurality of network devices including themselves in network device groups to which the representative network devices belong, and the management information collected by said first and second representative network devices is collected by said device management terminal; wherein said device management terminal comprises: an access timing table defining access timing for each of said representative network devices so that access from said first and second representative network devices to the device management terminal is dispersed; and a timing information notifying section notifying the representative network device of timing information indicating access timing corresponding to said representative network device with reference to said access timing table; wherein said dependent network devices comprise: a first management information storing section storing management information of the network device itself; and a first management information sending section sending management information of said first management information storing section to the representative network device of the network device group to which the network device itself belongs; and wherein said representative network devices comprise: a second management information storing section stpring management information of said representative network devices and said dependent network devices; a management information receiving section receiving said management information; a management information registering section registering in said second management information storing section the management information received by said management information receiving section; a timing information receiving section receiving said timing information; and a second management information sending section sending management information of said second management information storing section to said device management terminal based on the timing information received by said timing information receiving section.