Patent ID: 7421493

Claim:
A method of recovering orphaned network resources in a network service having a network model comprising: identifying an audit state for each resource of the network service that is included in the network model wherein the possible audit states comprise confirmed, unconfirmed, and suspect, wherein the confirmed audit state indicates that evidence has been gathered for a resource of the network service that verifies the accuracy of the network model, the suspect audit state indicates that evidence has been gathered for a resource of the network service that challenges the accuracy of the network model, and the unconfirmed audit state indicates that no evidence has yet been gathered to indicate a resource of the network service as confirmed or suspect; storing the audit state for each resource and coupling the stored audit state information with information regarding the resource associated with the network model; in response to the audit state of at least one resource of the network service being identified as suspect, redesigning the network model of the network service using only resources with the confirmed audit state; reconfiguring the network service to correspond with the redesigned network model; making available for reuse resources with the confirmed audit state that were not used in the reconfigured network service; and identifying as orphans resources that had the suspect audit state in the network service before the reconfiguration of the network service and that are not used in the reconfigured network service.