Patent ID: 7058715

Claim:
A method comprising: determining a set of accessor-accessible pairs, each accessor of each accessor-accessible pair having a predetermined level of access to the accessible of the accessor-accessible pair within a system topology; and, determining a mathematically canonical set of zones based on the set of accessor-accessible pairs, each zone having one or more accessors and one or more accessibles, the mathematically canonical set of zones used to manage access control of accessors and accessibles within the system topology, wherein determining the mathematically canonical set of zones based on the set of accessor-accessible pairs comprises: for each unique accessible within the set of accessor-accessible pairs, sorting and merging accessors of the set of accessor-accessible pairs paired with the unique accessible as a first proto-zone, yielding a set of first proto-zones, each first proto-zone having one or more accessors and an accessible: for each unique one or more accessors within the set of first proto-zones, sorting and merging accessibles of the set of first proto-zones associated with the unique one or more accessors as a second proto-zone, yielding a set of second proto-zones, each second proto-zone having one or more accessors and one or more accessibles; and, sorting the set of second proto-zones to yield the mathematically canonical set of zones.