Patent ID: 7984131

Claim:
A method of maintaining a change record comprising: receiving an indication of a change for recordation in a repository, the repository for monitoring configuration of a storage area network (SAN); identifying a current table of the repository and a history table of the repository; storing the received change in the current table, the current table reflective of a current configuration of the network, storing further comprising recording only current entries in the current table; moving, if the received change supercedes an item in the current table, the superceded item from the current table to the history table, the history table reflective of previous configuration states, further comprising recording only historical entries in the history table, the historical entries written previously as entries in the current table, each item in the current table not duplicative of the superceded item in the history table; selectively updating if the received change is indicative of a previous state of a SAN element, the history table to reflect a previous state of the network configuration affected by the received change; instantiating a view operable to combine the history table and the current table for access by a common query; and directing preexisting applications to look to the instantiated view instead of the history table and the current table, thereby providing for retrofitting the preexisting applications for using common queries with a common portal provided by the instantiated view.