Patent ID: 8675517

Claim:
A method for forming a filtered topology mapping, comprising: collecting topology data of a network; storing said topology data; receiving filtering criteria from a user, wherein the filtering criteria comprises a selection of one or more object attributes of the stored topology data; filtering the stored topology data using said filtering criteria; and forwarding said filtered topology data to the user, wherein the collecting of topology data comprises: searching for nodes in a pre-defined number of internet protocol (IP) addresses; repeating the search for a predefined number of hops; determining Layer-2 and Layer-3 connectivity from any of the nodes discovered during the search; correlating Layer-2 and Layer-3 address data; and determining network connectivity by examining the internet protocol (IP) addresses of each of the nodes discovered during the search, wherein the Layer-2 connectivity is used when available, and Layer-3 connectivity is used when the Layer-2 connectivity is not available.