Patent ID: 8296770

Claim:
A distributed system comprising: a plurality of field devices interconnected through a network run a plurality of distributed applications in parallel, an importance adjustment unit to calculate absolute values representing priority of tasks in the distributed applications in the entire distributed system for all the distributed applications in the distributed system, based on distributed application importance which is designated for each of the distributed applications and which represents importance of each of the distributed applications, and a distributed-application-based relative value which is designated for each of tasks constituting each of the distributed applications and which represents a priority of each of the tasks in each of the distributed applications, wherein the tasks which straddle the plurality of field devices are prioritized based on the calculated absolute values, and wherein, the importance adjustment unit further calculates a device-based relative value representing a relative value of priority of each task in each of the field devices by collecting the calculated absolute values for all the tasks to be executed in the field devices with respect to each of the field devices constituting the distributed system; the importance adjustment unit further comprising: a normalization/update section configured to designate the importance of additional distributed applications to be added with the distributed applications; an absolute value reserve section configured to reserve absolute value areas for the additional distributed applications to be added; an absolute value mapping section configured to allocate the calculated absolute values to the reserved absolute value areas; and a device-based relative value mapping section configured to calculate the device-based relative values for each of the field devices based on the calculated absolute values; the distributed system further comprises a resource allocation section in each of the field devices to allocate hardware resource of the field device to each task in accordance with the device-based relative value calculated for each of the field devices.