Patent ID: 8144618

Claim:
A method for automatic verification of zone configurations and network access control constructs for a plurality of network switching devices comprising: accessing an actual network access control construct on a network switching device, the actual network access control construct for defining the device actually coupled with the network switching device, wherein the network switching device is one of the plurality of network switching devices, wherein the plurality of network switching devices includes network switching devices, which are defined by an actual zone configuration and are actually part of a zone that comprises the network switching devices defined by the actual zone configuration, wherein the plurality of network switching devices includes network switching devices defined by a pre-determined zone configuration, which should be part of the zone, wherein the plurality of network switching devices includes network switching devices included in a machine-readable map of the network, accessing the actual zone configuration; accessing the machine-readable map of the network, the map is separate from a storage area network (SAN) that includes the plurality of network switching devices and provides a pre-determined network access control construct defining the device, which should be coupled with the network switching device, and the pre-determined zone configuration defining the network switching devices, which should be part of the zone; and automatically verifying that the actual network access control construct and the actual zone configuration correlates with the pre-determined network access control construct and the pre-determined zone configuration defined by the machine-readable map, wherein the verifying is performed by a verifying protocol associated with a Utility Data Center (UDC) that is located separate from the SAN.