It is an object of the present invention to provide a highly reliable
image database system capable of accessing image data at high speed
regardless of the increase of the image data and capable of controlling
the image data as a whole. A storage unit 1, a control unit 2, an image
database server 3 and a DICOM gateway 4 are subjected with each other to
network connection. The storage unit 1 stores medical image data. The
control unit 2 controls the storage unit. The image database server 3
stores key information associated with the image data stored and applies
relay processing between an externally connected viewer and the image
database server. The DICOM gateway 4 applies relay processing via a DICOM
protocol between a plurality of modality devices externally connected
with the image database server and the DICOM gateway. A control unit
group, an image database server group, and a DICOM gateway group are
constituted by providing at least a plurality of control units, a
plurality of image database servers and a plurality of DICOM gateways,
and a load balancer for executing load distribution control of every
group is provided for every group based on header information of a
request.