Patent ID: 8130674

Claim:
A method for discovering agent devices connected to a network, said method comprising: broadcasting, from a management station, a multicast discovery message to all agent devices connected to the network, the multicast discovery message comprising a station address uniquely identifying the management station, a session number identifying a session, and command instructions instructing all discovery aware agent devices connected to the network to answer the discovery message; receiving, at the management station, discovery acknowledge unicast messages from at least some of the discovery aware agent devices connected to the network, the discovery acknowledge unicast messages comprising at least a device address uniquely identifying the discovery aware agent device sending the discovery acknowledge unicast message and the session number identifying the session; sending, from the management station, a unicast registration message to each discovery aware agent device from which the management station received a corresponding discovery acknowledge unicast message using the device address provided in the corresponding discovery acknowledge unicast message, said unicast registration message comprising a sequence number based on the session number identifying the session.