Patent ID: 7860016

Claim:
A method for operating on a system containing a plurality of components communicating using at least one communication protocol, the method comprising the steps of: representing, in a non-user accessible manner, selected ones of the plurality of components, the relationship among the components and the associated communication protocols to form a model of the system; wherein the step of representing the at least one communication protocol comprises the steps of: creating at least one non-specific representation of the communication protocols selected from the group consisting of: OSPFArea, OSPFAreaConfiguration, OSPFService, OSPFInterface, OSPFVirtualInterface, OSFPNeighborEndpoint, OSPFNetwork, OSPFNeighborRelationsip and OSFPVirtualLink; wherein the OSPFArea represents a set of IP subnets within the system; and determining a mapping between a plurality of events and a plurality of observable events occurring among the components and among the communication protocols, wherein the mapping is represented as a value associating each event with each observable event, and performing the operation in conjunction with the events and observable events, wherein the events associated with the communication protocols are distinguished from events associated with the components.