Patent ID: 8443065

Claim:
A communications system, comprising: a plurality of network switches interconnected together and configured to form a communications network; one of the network switches having a newly deployed network device; at least one existing neighboring network device connected to the newly deployed network device; a Network Manager connected to the communications network remotely from the newly deployed network device and existing neighboring network device; wherein the newly deployed network device is configured to determine its physical network connectivity within the communications network by propagating a discovery protocol frame to the at least one existing neighboring network device, said discovery protocol frame having an organizationally specific Type Length Value (TLV) and Organizationally Unique Identifier (OUI) and data defining a query as a command to request data of physical network connectivity and solicit from the existing neighboring network device the physical network connectivity data of the newly deployed device within the communications network, said newly deployed network device also configured to receive in response to the query, its physical network connectivity data and the network data address on the Network Manager, and in response, transmit its physical network connectivity data to the remote Network Manager; and wherein said Network Manager is configured to transmit provisioning data to the newly deployed network device based on the received physical network connectivity data.