Patent ID: 6990601

Claim:
An apparatus for monitoring devices connected to a network, comprising: a relationship object maintaining part maintaining dependent information for each relationship between devices connected to the network, said dependent information being predetermined to indicate a predefined type of influence one device has on another device when the one device causes a problem, said predefined type of influence being selected prior to occurrence of the problem; an event table maintaining part maintaining device information, which identifies a device in the network, indicated by an event received from the device; an event collecting part collecting each event received from the devices and controlling the event table maintaining part to maintain the device information when the event indicates a problem; and a problem alarm notifying part determining, based on the dependent information maintained by the relationship object maintaining part, whether or not each of the devices identified by the device information maintained by the event table maintaining part influences another device by the problem, and specifying which device is causing the problem in accordance with a result of the determination, so that an alarm is displayed with respect to the specified device which is causing the problem and influencing another device.