Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.p.

Eric A Pulsipher

Max C Knees

Srikanth Natarajan

Joseph R Hunt

Zhi-Qiang Wang

Loren F Wilson

Gabriel Wechter

Darren D Smith

Kevin N Smith

Gautam Mehrotra

Mark A Schilling

Wallace Clayton Davis

Exemplary embodiments are directed to a system and method for managing a network having multiple domains. An exemplary method includes identifying a router interface connected with a switch; assigning a Layer 2 identifier to the interface, wherein the identifier uniquely identifies a Layer 2 domain within the network; and assigning the Layer 2 identifier to the switch.

Method and system for managing a network having multiple domains

A method for discovering a network comprising network devices, the method including dividing the network into zones of network devices, in a zone of the network, identifying devices in the zone that have SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol) access, collecting data from those devices in the zone identified as having SNMP access, and stitching the collected data into a topology of the network. A machine readable medium a computer program for causing a computing device to perform the exemplary method. A system for discovering a network organized into zones of network devices includes means for identifying devices in a zone of the network that have SNMP access, collecting data from those devices in the zone identified as having SNMP access, and stitching the collected data into a topology of the network, and means for transferring data to and from the means for identifying, collecting and stitching.

Network discovery

An exemplary method for managing a network of nodes includes receiving information identifying the nodes of the network, and grouping the nodes into zones as a function of relationships among the nodes, such that each zone satisfies a threshold that is based on an operational capacity of a discovery agent assigned to discover the network. An exemplary system for managing a network of nodes includes means or a mechanism for receiving information identifying the nodes of the network, and grouping the nodes into zones as a function of relationships among the nodes, such that each zone satisfies a threshold that is based on an operational capacity of a discovery agent assigned to discover the network, and means or a mechanism for connecting to the network.

Method and system for managing a network of nodes

A device discovery module of a network management software is utilized to discover the presence of layer-2 network devices. When enabled by a command from the network management software, the device discovery module may be configured to query or poll all network devices for information. The device discovery module may be configured to seek address information from an address resolution protocol ('ARP') cache of a queried network device. The ARP cache may contain addresses, e.g., layer-2 address, of other network devices contacted by the queried network device. The device discovery module may be further configured to retrieve from the queried network device the port type and port configuration. After retrieving the address information, the device discovery module organizes the address information in an ordered list starting with the identified port of a network device and address information detected on the identified port. If the identified port has been identified as a single point-to-point connection, and there are multiple address detected on that port, this is an inference that there is a device connecting the remote device of the identified port with the devices of each address heard. Otherwise, if the identified port has been identified as a single point-to-point connection, and there is only one address detected, this is an inference that there are no intervening devices.

System for inference of presence of network infrastructure devices

A method for the automatic layout of switched networks of switched network topologies. In representative embodiments, a topological map of a network is automatically obtained by combining various segments into one of three segment types, a bus segment, a serial segment, and a star segment. In the creation of the topological map of the network, the methods can be used to update the network map as changes occur.

Method for automatic layout of switched network topologies

A software method is disclosed for processing data pertaining to connections in a communications network, such as a computer network. The data may be used to map the topology of the network to aid network management. The system creates data structures referred to as tuples to store the relationships between network nodes. A connection calculator receives tuple information from a tuple manager and creates additional tuples based on this data. The connection calculator identifies singly-heard host links, from which it then builds tuples to represent the network infrastructure. To build the infrastructure, the method creates tuples for the singly-heard host links, and then creates tuples for conn-to-conn links based on existing tuples and on hints derived from singly-heard host links tuples, which hints are maintained as extra host links tuples. The method then attempts to disprove invalid conn-to-conn links tuples and attempts to resolve conflicts between inconsistent tuples. The method creates tuples for nodes involving shared media connections. If the connection calculator cannot create a tuple because there is insufficient information about a connection, it requests additional information from that node. After the tuples are created, the connection calculator consolidates those binary tuples involving shared media connections into n-ary tuples to represent the shared media connection. The refined tuples may then be used to identify changes in the network topology.

Method and system for processing data for network connections

A method and system are disclosed for mapping the topology of a network having interconnected nodes by identifying changes in the network and updating a stored network topology based on the changes. The nodal connections are represented by data tuples that store information such as a host identifier, a connector interface, and a port specification for each connection. A topology database stores an existing topology of a network. A topology converter accesses the topology database and converts the existing topology into a list of current tuples. A connection calculator calculates tuples to represent connections in the new topology. The topology converter receives the new tuples, identifies changes to the topology, and updates the topology database using the new tuples. The topology converter identifies duplicate tuples that appear in both the new tuples and the existing tuples and marks the duplicate tuples to reflect that no change has occurred to these connections. The topology converter attempts to resolve swapped port conditions and searches for new singly-heard and multi-heard host link tuples in the list of existing tuples. The topology converter also searches for new conflict link tuples in the existing tuples. The topology converter updates the topology database with the new topology.

Method and system for identifying and processing changes to a network topology

Automatic failover methodology provides a mechanism whereby a central control unit, such as a management station, will automatically takeover interface status polling of objects of a collection station that is temporarily unreachable. This methodology is applicable to any distributed computing environment, such as a data communications network, in which it is desirable to have a central control unit assume the interface status polling operation of a temporarily inaccessible collection station. The collection station may be inaccessible due to the network on which the central control unit and the collection station reside being down or due to the collection station being down for maintenance.

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Ft. Collins, CO, United States of America

Eric A Pulsipher