Patent ID: 7216166
Filing Date: 2007-05-08
Classification: H04L

Abstract:
1. A network management apparatus for managing a network configuration, comprising: a collection means for collecting addresses assigned respectively to network elements belonging to a managed network, from said network elements, an acquisition means for acquiring address definition information that defines a logical hierarchical structure of the managed network, a configuration analysis means for classifying the address of the network elements collected by said collection means into logical networks in each of logical layers of the managed network specified by the address definition information acquired by said acquisition means, and for defining hierarchical relationships between the logical networks, and a monitoring screen generation means for generating information of a network monitoring screen for each logical network representing a network configuration in a layer just under the logical network in question, according to the hierarchical relationships of said logical network defined by said configuration analysis means, wherein: said collection means collects element information including an address, connection relationships and element type of the network element in question, from each network element belonging to the managed network, said configuration analysis means defines relay nodes included in each logical network classified by said address definition information according to the element information collected by said collection means from each network element, and defines connection relationships between said relay nodes, and said monitoring screen generation means generates information of a network monitoring screen for each logical network by using symbols representing logical networks, referred to as lower-side logical networks, included in the logical network in question and belonging to a layer just under the logical network in question, symbols representing relay nodes included in the logical network in question, and symbols representing connections between the lower-side logical networks and the relay nodes, in order to display said network monitoring screen that represents the network configuration.