Patent ID: 8898265

Claim:
A system for determining data flows within a network configuration, the network configuration comprising a plurality of nodes and a plurality of network devices through which data is routed between the nodes, each of the nodes having a plurality of processes executing thereon, the system comprising: a plurality of remote agents configured to gather information about corresponding ones of the plurality of nodes, wherein the gathered information at each of the plurality of nodes includes a list of the processes at the corresponding node and network traffic samples of network traffic captured at the corresponding node; and a mapping engine configured to receive the gathered information from each of the remote agents, wherein the mapping engine is configured to determine the data flows based on the gathered information from the remote agents and configuration information relating to the network devices, wherein the configuration information comprises information defining how a network device processes data arriving at the network device, wherein each of the remote agents is located at a corresponding one of the nodes and is configured to obtain information about the processes executing on the corresponding node.