Patent ID: 8332542

Claim:
A computer program product for procuring information from entities in a network via an Input/Output (I/O) processing system, comprising: a tangible storage medium readable by a processing circuit and storing instructions for execution by the processing circuit for performing a method comprising: receiving, at a channel subsystem in a host computer, at least one network topology information request from an operating system in the host computer, the channel subsystem configured to communicate with the operating system; building a command program including at least one command request by the channel subsystem that includes the at least one network topology information request, the command program including a transport command word (TCW), a transport services request block (TSRQB) and a transport services response block (TSRSB), and sending the at least one command request from the channel subsystem to at least one network entity; receiving a response to the at least one command request from the at least one network entity by the channel subsystem; and forwarding the response from the channel subsystem to the operating system.