Information Processing Apparatus and Method of Operating the Same

An information processing apparatus communicatively coupled via a network to servers on which a plurality of applications are running for operating a service system, the information processing apparatus comprising:

• a storage unit that stores network addresses of the servers, storing, in a correlated manner, application identification information as information for identifying the applications, active server addresses as network addresses of the servers on which the applications are running, and communication source addresses of the applications;
• and
• an application aggregating unit
• acquiring from the storage unit and comparing the application identification information, the addresses of the servers corresponding thereto, and communication source addresses of the applications, so that when it is judged that the communication source addresses do not coincide with any of the addresses of the servers, the application aggregating unit judges the applications having the application identification information as being applications belonging to a first layer in the service system,
• acquiring from the storage unit and comparing application identification information of the applications judged as belonging to the first layer, the active server addresses of the applications, and the application identification information and communication source addresses of applications other than the applications judged as belonging to the first layer, so that the application aggregating unit judges applications having the application identification information correlated to the communication source addresses identical to the active server addresses as belonging to a second layer;
• and
• continuing acquiring from the storage unit communication source addresses of applications other than the applications judged as belonging to the first and the second layer, to repeat the judgment process to judge the layers of each applications contained in the service system.