Patent ID: 8856338

Claim:
A system for relating a first management application to a second management application, comprising: a memory; a processor coupled to the memory; a linkage controller operative, on the processor, to access a resource and relationship model of a selection of resources and relationships managed by and known by a first management application from among a plurality of resources and relationships in a computing environment, wherein the resource and relationship model comprises at least one common resource managed by the first management application and a second management application adjacent to the first management application in a computing environment; the linkage controller operative to identify only a minimal set of resources and relationships from among a plurality of resources and relationships within the resource and relationship model required for providing at least one optimal linkage point between the first management application and the second management application as to the at least one common resource by: the linkage controller operative to identify at least one server managed by the first management application as a starting point of a set of devices providing an optimal and consumable set of devices for the minimal set of resources and relationships; the linkage controller operative to define a file comprising the minimal set of resources and relationships to be exported by the first management application; the linkage controller operative to specify a particular open systems interconnect layer, from among multiple open systems interconnect layers, to be analyzed by the linkage controller; the linkage controller operative to specify a hop setting as one of on or off; the linkage controller operative, for each server from among the at least one server specified in the set of devices, to add the server to the file and to define a set of first network devices connected one hop away from the server at the particular open systems interconnect layer; and the linkage controller operative, for each first network device defined in the set of first network devices defined for each server, to add the first network device to the file and to relate the first network device to the server and responsive to the hop setting specified as on, to define a set of second network devices connected one hop away from the first network device at a particular open systems interconnect layer, and for second network device defined in the set of second network devices, to add the second network device in the set of second network devices to the file and relate the second network device in the set of second network devices with the first network device in the set of first network devices; and the linkage controller operative to output the minimal set of resources and relationships to the second management application by writing the file to disk space accessible by the second management application.