Patent ID: 7752338

Claim:
A method for discovering a conceptual ring topology of a domain in a network comprising: determining which devices are within a domain in a network; identifying which ports on the devices are configured to participate in the domain; discovering links underlying the domain starting at an arbitrary one of the ports configured to participate in the domain; determining whether a topology of the links underlying the domain form a ring, wherein the topology of the links underlying the domain form a ring when each of the identified ports is accounted for in the discovered links; and wherein each of the ports is accounted for in the discovered links by: traversing a link from a starting port to an ending port using a link discovery protocol, where the starting port is the arbitrary one of the ports configured to participate in the domain; determining that the ending port is configured to participate in the domain in a device within the domain; and traversing a next link from an interim port to a next ending port using the link discovery protocol, where the interim port is configured to participate in the domain in the same device as the ending port, until determining that all of the ports configured to participate in the domain in the devices within the domain have been traversed.