Patent ID: 8458319

Claim:
A system comprising: a switch structured and arranged to selectively filter and forward network traffic, the switch including: distributed tracking modules included in a plurality of line cards of the switch, wherein each distributed tracking module is associated with a distinct line card and includes a distributed tracking table comprising a local hash table, wherein each distributed tracking module monitors for an existence of changes in network resources associated with a distributed forwarding engine (FE) in the respective line card and triggers storage of resource history information for each change in respective distributed tracking table, and wherein each distributed tracking module distributes resource history information associated with a change in an associated network resource to other distributed tracking modules and a centralized tracking module; the centralized tracking module included in a supervisory module of the switch that communicates with the distributed tracking modules in the plurality of line cards of the switch and with a centralized FE associated with the centralized tracking module, wherein the centralized tracking module stores resource history information in a centralized tracking table comprising a master hash table located at the centralized tracking module, wherein the master hash table aggregates the resource history information from the local hash tables of the distributed tracking modules, and wherein the resource history information in each local hash table and the master hash table are updated based upon detection of resource changes or information associated with the resource changes; and a user interface in communication with the centralized tracking module, wherein resource history information for a network resource includes a resource creation time for the network resource, a reason for creation for the network resource and a mechanism that triggered change in the network resource.