Patent ID: 7979515

Claim:
A distribution management method of distributing software to a plurality of clients via representative clients of the plurality of clients, the representative clients being in charge of distribution relay of said software, selected by a management server, said method comprising: gathering, by the management server inventory information from each of the plurality of clients and storing the inventory information to the memory of the management server; selecting, by the management server, the representative clients from the plurality of clients based on selection conditions, the representative clients receiving the software from the management server and sending the software to target clients, which are clients from the plurality of clients other than the respective clients; distributing, by the management server, the software to the target clients via the selected representative clients; receiving, by the management server, a distribution result from each of the target clients via the selected representative clients, and storing the distribution result and a distribution time into the memory; calculating, by the management server, an average distribution time for each of the plurality of clients by measuring the distribution time and the number of clients to which the software is to be distributed, and storing the average distribution time and the number of clients into the memory as distribution history information; selecting, by the management server, at least two representative clients from the plurality of clients satisfying said selection conditions by referring to said inventory information and said distribution history information, said selection conditions including a condition that selects a client that satisfies where a CPU use factor registered in said inventory information is lower than a predetermined value of said CPU use factor and that satisfies where the average distribution time registered in said distribution history information is shorter than the average distribution time of other clients of the plurality of clients; and generating, by the management server, representative group information from the selected representative clients, and transmitting the representative group information to each of the target clients via each one of the selected representative clients, wherein each of the target clients performs steps of: receiving the representative group information and software from one of the selected representative clients; determining whether the target client is not the one of the selected representative clients, and determining whether the target client can connect to the same one of the selected representative clients which the target client receives the software from, in order to transmit the distribution result to the management server; and if the target client cannot connect to the same one of the selected representative clients, connecting to another one of the selected representative clients in accordance with said representative group information.