Patent ID: 8199674

Claim:
A method of checking consistency of node relationship information in nodes of a strongly connected network, said method comprising the steps of: receiving a consistency-checking request in a receiving network node, said consistency-checking request being received from an initiating network node and requesting the receiving node to check the consistency of node relationship information; determining a local consistency-checking result of the consistency of node relationship information between the initiating node and the receiving node by comparing relationship information stored in the receiving node with relationship information received in the request; if the receiving node does not have defined relations with any further nodes in the network, sending the local consistency-checking result from the receiving node to the initiating network node; and if the receiving node has defined relations with at least one further node in the network: sending a further consistency-checking request to the at least one further node with which the receiving network node has a defined relationship; receiving from the at least one further node, a consistency-checking response which includes a further consistency-checking result regarding the consistency of relationship information between the receiving node and the at least one further node; aggregating the further consistency-checking result with the local consistency-checking result to form an aggregated result; and sending the aggregated result to the initiating network node.