Patent ID: 7720949

Claim:
A relay control method for relaying a process request to an information processing system that dynamically installs an additional server in addition to an existing server according to a volume of process requests from a client, comprising: temporarily pooling the process requests in a pooling unit; determining whether the information processing system is installing the additional server, wherein an indicator is set to indicate whether the information processing system is installing the additional server; relaying the process request received from the client to the information processing system when it is determined at the determining that the information processing system is not installing the additional server and setting the indicator to a first position; relaying only a process request processable by the existing server from among process requests received from the client to the information processing system when it is determined at the determining that the information processing system is installing the additional server and setting the indicator to a second position different from the first position; estimating the volume of the process requests from the client; calculating the number of the additional servers required at a specific time in future from the volume of the process requests estimated at the estimating; and reporting the number of the additional servers calculated at the calculating to the information processing system, wherein the calculating includes calculating the number of the additional servers as a sum of the number of additional servers at the specific time required for processing within a predetermined period process requests received from the client, and the number of additional servers required for processing within the predetermined period process requests received from the client and yet not relayed to the information processing system by a specific time.