Patent ID: 7194534

Claim:
A method of discovery and display of one or more Ethernet phones on a network, said method including the steps of: discovering an Ethernet phone by means of a first protocol, using discovered information to insert an icon representing the phone in a relevant position in a display of the topology of the network, and discovering other devices on the network using a different protocol; loading a web page to display a network map; parsing information from the web page to establish correspondence between a particular Ethernet phone and a MAC address; finding a port associated with the MAC address of the particular Ethernet phone; retrieving relevant details of the particular Ethernet phone, wherein retrieving the relevant details is conditioned upon determining that only the MAC address of the particular Ethernet phone is associated with the port; displaying on the network map a phone icon connected to the network via a port icon that is representative of the port, wherein displaying the phone icon connected to a port icon is conditioned upon determining that only the MAC address of the particular Ethernet is associated with the port; displaying on the network map a device icon connected to the network via the Ethernet phone and port icons, wherein displaying the device icon is conditioned upon determining that (i) two MAC addresses are associated with the port, and (ii) one of the two MAC addresses is associated with the Ethernet phone; and display on the network map an unmanaged aggregator cloud icon connected to the network via the port icon, wherein displaying the unmanaged aggregator cloud icon is conditioned upon determining that (i) at least two MAC addresses are associated with the port, and (ii) the at least two MAC addresses are not associated with the Ethernet phone.