Patent ID: 7568022

Claim:
An Information Technology (IT) system display method, comprising: providing a description of a configuration of devices, network segments, and vertical connectors relating to an IT structure, said description describing how the devices, the network segments, and the vertical connectors are mutually coupled; generating a two-dimensional matrix having N cells therein and representing a display screen, each cell of the matrix adapted to hold no more than one device of said devices, said matrix having NY rows oriented in a horizontal direction and NX columns oriented in a vertical direction such that N=NX*NY, said horizontal and vertical directions being mutually perpendicular, said devices being initially distributed to form an initial distribution of said devices in the cells of the matrix; defining a goal value of the configuration, said goal value being a function of a length and weight of each network segment, a length and weight of each vertical connector, and a penalty for each crossing of one of said devices by one of said network segments; determining a final distribution of said devices in the cells of the matrix; and determining an overlay pattern of the network segments and the vertical connectors overlayed on the matrix in accordance with said final distribution and with said description, said goal value relating to the final distribution being lower than the goal value relating to the initial distribution; and displaying on the display screen said final distribution together with said overlay pattern.