US Patent 7587472 Resource management system

A resource management server that manages information concerning the resource reservation status and the information of groups of all electronic equipments connected to hubs. When an electronic equipment is newly connected to a port of one of the hubs, the electronic equipment issues a resource request and the group information to the resource management server. The resource management server sets up a network path between the newly connected electronic equipment and the other electronic equipments belonging to the same group as the newly connected electronic equipment, and judges if the resource request can be accepted on the setup network path.