Patent ID: 8850021

Claim:
A method, comprising: hashing, individually, features of devices in a ubiquitous computing environment into a series of hierarchical hash numbers, the features of each of the devices include a functional name and at least one descriptive attribute of the respective devices; organizing, the respective hash numbers into the series of hierarchical hash numbers by: receiving the functional name and at least one descriptive attribute of one of the devices into respective pre-configured data fields, and hashing each of the respective pre-configured data fields, including filling one of an empty one of the respective pre-configured data fields for the each of the received attributes with a predetermined value, the predetermined value is a numerical value, wherein the hierarchical hash numbers for each of the devices includes a concatenation of a base hash representation of, respectively, the functional name and the one or more descriptive attributes of the respective device; ordering the hierarchical hash numbers corresponding to the respective devices sequentially; receiving data entries including the functional name and at least one descriptive attribute of the device subject to a search; hashing the data entries results in hashed search criteria; and searching for a particular one of the devices by attempting to match the hashed search criteria to the ordered hierarchical hash numbers at one of the devices in the ubiquitous computing environment.