Patent ID: 7509405

Claim:
A method for inferring topology in a network, said method comprising: (a) determining which non-interconnect devices are visible to each adapter in the network; (b) obtaining pre-existing topology information about connected adapters in the network, separating adapters into a list of the connected adapters and a list of unconnected adapters, and linking each connected adapter to an associated interconnect device, wherein said unconnected adapters comprise adapters for which no pre-existing topology information is available that specifies to which interconnect devices such unconnected adapters are connected; (c) for each unconnected adapter, searching for a connected adapter having visibility to every said non-interconnect device visible to the unconnected adapter, and when said searching is successful, assigning a link between the interconnect device associated with the connected adapter and the unconnected adapter; (d) obtaining a list of non-interconnect devices in the network excluding non-interconnect devices already having completely satisfied visibilities; (e) for each non-interconnect device in the list, finding an adapter not already linked to the non-interconnect device that has visibility to the non-interconnect device, and assigning a link between the non-interconnect device and an interconnect device assigned to the found adapter or directly between the found adapter and the non-interconnect device; and (f) iterating steps (d) and (e) until visibility of each adapter is satisfied.