Patent ID: 7991855

Claim:
A method for automatically assigning a common identifier to a target group of nodes in a network, wherein the target group of nodes is accessible by other nodes through said identifier, the target group of nodes being created by splitting a source group of nodes having assigned a source group identifier into said target group of nodes and a remainder, wherein the source group of nodes, the target group of nodes, and the remainder are peer groups, the method comprising: determining automatically, via an electronic device, a node from said target group of nodes to execute the following steps, wherein the determined node has access to information characterizing said target group of nodes and to information characterizing the remainder; comparing a plurality of features of said target group of nodes and the remainder, wherein the features are based on said characteristic information; determining the common identifier for the target group of nodes based on the result of said comparison, wherein, the common identifier of either the target group or the remainder is the group identifier of said source group of nodes; and assigning the common identifier to the nodes of said target group of nodes, wherein values are assigned to the features and the values for each group of nodes are accumulated.