Plant monitoring/controlling apparatus

A plant monitoring/controlling apparatus in which a plurality of clients communicate with each other via a network, one of said clients being a configuration control client, each of said clients including:

• an acquisition unit for acquiring data from said network;
• a process unit for processing, from among said acquired data, sync data corresponding to one of a plurality of functions used to monitor/control said plant so as to calculate processed sync data, said one function being assigned to said each clients by said configuration control client;
• a storage unit for storing said processed sync data;
• and
• a transmission unit for transmitting said processed sync data to another client via said network,
• wherein when an interruption of a data transfer occurs in said network, another of said clients is newly determined as a configuration control client in a partial network in which communication with the former configuration control client is interrupted, and
• said another configuration control client assigns functions which were shared in said network before being interrupted to clients in said partial network on a client basis to share said functions within said partial network, while said former configuration control client assigns functions which were shared in said network before being interrupted to clients in another partial network which includes said former configuration control client, on a client basis to share said functions within said another partial network.