Patent ID: 8533230

Claim:
A system for managing topologies, comprising: a topology data datastore that stores topology information; a topology computer element that interfaces with the topology data datastore to create and update a topology of resources, wherein the topology computer element comprises a processor and maintains a generation identifier for the topology of resources, wherein the generation identifier represents a version of a state of the topology and has a value of one when the topology of resources is created and is monotonically increased each time the topology of resources is updated; a subscription creation computer element that subscribes to a topology synchronization topic when the topology of resources is being created; and a subscription computer element that generates notifications to a user based on at least one of the creating and the updating of the topology of resources and further based on the -topology synchronization topic, wherein each notification comprises the generation identifier for the topology of resources; wherein the topology of resources represents resources and relationships within a customer information technology environment and comprises a termination time for a scheduled destruction of the topology of resources, wherein creating and updating the topology of resources is based on a truncation rule, which truncates the topology of resources at a given starting node when a criteria specified in the truncation rule has been met, the truncation rule comprising a truncation threshold value used to specify when the topology of resources should be truncated based on a number of a same type of links and related nodes with a same starting node has been reached.