Patent ID: 7185109

Claim:
A method of discovering Cisco Discovery Protocol (CDP) nodes in a network of nodes of various types in real time resulting in a set of CDP type of nodes, comprising: seeding a discovery process using at least one of querying a user to provide a first CDP node information and searching a database of CDP nodes previously discovered by a network manager to identify a first CDP node; transmitting a signal from the network manager to the first CDP node of the network, wherein the signal requests information contained in a management information base of the first CDP node regarding additional CDP nodes known to the first CDP node; receiving a response that identifies the additional CDP nodes known to the first CDP node; repeating the transmitting and receiving steps for each additional CDP node identified; and storing a list containing addresses of all identified nodes of the CDP type for a selected display pertaining to the identified CDP nodes among the nodes of various types in the network wherein the first CDP node can be any of the CDP type of nodes within the network.