System for inference of presence of network infrastructure devices

Abstract

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.