Patent ID: 8139243

Claim:
An information processing apparatus connected to a computer network, the apparatus comprising: a receiver, arranged to receive a print job from a client computer via the computer network, the print job including information indicating an image processing apparatus to perform printing for the received print job and a numeral indicating a security level of data included in the print job; an obtainer, arranged to obtain resource information from a plurality of information processing devices; a determiner, arranged to determine a processing method of the received print job based on the numeral indicating the security level and the obtained resource information, wherein, in a first case that the numeral corresponds to a low security level, a plurality of target resources of distributed processing of the received print job is determined from the plurality of information processing devices having subnet addresses corresponding to a network segment to which the image processing apparatus belongs and, in a second case that the numeral corresponds to a medium security level, the plurality of target resources of distributed processing is determined from the plurality of information processing devices having the subnet addresses and an encryption function and, in a third case that the numeral corresponds to a high security level, the determiner determines that the received print job is to be processed using the image processing apparatus and that the distributed processing is not to be performed; and a divider, arranged to divide the received print job into a plurality of divided jobs based on a division unit and the resource information of the plurality of target resources of distributed processing in the first or second cases; and a transmitter, arranged to transmit the plurality of divided jobs to the plurality of target resources of distributed processing via the computer network in the first or second cases, and to transmit the received print job to the image processing apparatus via the computer network to perform printing for the received print job in the third case, wherein the plurality of divided jobs is processed by the plurality of target resources of distributed processing, the plurality of divided jobs is gathered to the image processing apparatus after the distributed processing, and the plurality of divided jobs is combined to perform printing for the received print job by the image processing apparatus.