Patent ID: 8418191

Claim:
An application flow control apparatus having a part of a plurality of applications performing cooperative processing, the apparatus comprising: a physical storage to receive a transmission trigger indicating that a first message, containing flow definition information for specifying an execution sequence of the plurality of applications, has been transmitted, the transmission trigger including identification information for identifying the first message; and a processing unit to recognize that the first message has been transmitted when the physical storage receives the transmission trigger, receive the first message based on the identification information included in the transmission trigger, call an application to be executed according to the flow definition information contained in the first message, renew the first message to a second message containing the flow definition information and a result of processing by the called application, by using the same transaction as the one in which the called application renews data to be processed by the cooperative processing, transmit the second message to a transmission addressee executing a next application, and transmit a transmission trigger indicating that the second message has been transmitted, to the transmission addressee, wherein the first message is stored in the same storage apparatus as the data renewed by the called application.