The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Dec. 15, 1998
Filed:
Apr. 10, 1996
Ilan Raab, Sunnyvale, CA (US);
Nam N Nguyen, Fremont, CA (US);
Ai-Lan Chang, Fremont, CA (US);
Gilbert D Ho, Saratoga, CA (US);
Guruprasad S Hadagali, Sunnyvale, CA (US);
Bay Networks, Inc., Santa Clara, CA (US);
Abstract
A method for determining the topology of a mixed-media network is provided. According to the method, the network is divided into communities of devices that support a common topology mechanism ('spheres'). On each sphere, one or more sphere topology agents generate and accumulate topology data for the devices on the sphere using the topology mechanism that is supported by the devices within the sphere. A global topology agent collects the topology data for each sphere from the various sphere agents and assembles the data to determine the global topology of the mixed-media network. The global topology agent begins by collecting data from a current sphere and identifies additional spheres based on data stored in boundary devices within the current sphere. The global topology agent then repeats the same process with the additional spheres until topology data has been collected from all of the spheres in the mixed-media network.