Patent ID: 8335009

Claim:
An apparatus, comprising: an attribute information receiving unit configured to receive, from any of a plurality of external apparatuses, attribute information of image data stored in the external apparatuses; a first request receiving unit configured to receive a first request for acquiring the attribute information from any of the plurality of external apparatuses; an attribute information sending unit configured to send, in response to reception of the first request, the attribute information received by the attribute information receiving unit to a requesting external apparatus among the plurality of external apparatuses; a request receiving unit configured to receive, from the external apparatus to which the attribute information has been sent, a second request for acquiring image data including particular attribute information among the attribute information sent by the attribute information sending unit; an image data acquiring unit configured to determine, based on the particular attribute information included in the received request, the external apparatus that stores the requested image data among the plurality of external apparatus, and to acquire the image data from the determined external apparatus; an image data sending unit configured to send the acquired image data to the requested external apparatus.