Network management system capable of easily switching from an active to a backup manager

Claim 1

A network management system, comprising: first through N-th agents, each of which carries out a management operation on a management object, where N represents a predetermined natural number which is not less than two; an active manager for managing said first through said N-th agents; and a backup manager for managing said first through said N-th agents, whenever a fault occurs in said active manager, and wherein: said active manager includes fault detecting means for detecting said fault in said active manager to produce a fault detection signal, said backup manager includes delivering means supplied with said fault detection signal for delivering, in response to said fault detection signal, a name signal representative of a backup manager name, assigned to said backup manager as an indicated name to said first through said N-th agents, and each of said first through said N-th agents comprising: storing means for preliminarily storing an active manager name assigned to said active manager as a stored manager name and for storing, as said stored manager name, said indicated name when supplied with said name signal; and sending means connected to said storing means for sending management information to one of said active and said backup managers which is assigned with said stored manager name.