Patent ID: 8769339

Claim:
An apparatus for managing a network system including a plurality of components, the apparatus comprising: a memory that stores: component type data of each component of the plurality of components, component relation data including relation information indicating a pair of components related to each other in the network system, the relation information including a first component type data of a first component requesting a process of the component and a second component type data of a second component accepting a request of the process requested by the first component, and error history data indicating error information of the plurality of components; and a processor coupled to the memory and which is configured to: extract candidates of a relation class indicating a propagating direction of an error between components, based on the component type data, component relation data, and the error history data, determine the relation class among the candidates based on the first component type data and the second component type data, determine an investigation range by predetermining a specified hop value and decrementing the hop value every time the relation class is tracked, and estimate a point where a failure causing the error has occurred by tracking the relation class within the investigation range.