Patent ID: 7587495

Claim:
An Internet Protocol network comprising: a plurality of controller computers; and a plurality of clients coupled to the plurality of controller computers; wherein the plurality of controller computers in response to attachment to the network are operable to automatically self-register themselves using a discovery mechanism within each of the plurality of clients; and to notify the plurality of clients, and each of the plurality of clients to interrogate the plurality of controller computers and each of the plurality of clients to update its configuration based upon the interrogation; and wherein any of the plurality of clients to start a synchronization sequence to interrogate the plurality of controller computers, filtering out those controller computers which are not part of the network and querying the configuration of a first controller it finds that is coupled to the network, wherein each of the controller computers and each of the plurality of clients perform the following: providing for allocating IP addresses without a Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) server; providing for translating between names and IP addresses without a Domain Name System (DNS) server; and, locating or advertising services without a directory server.