Patent ID: 7747747

Claim:
A method of identifying computer network resources on a computer network and preventing network resource duplication, said method comprising: receiving a duplicate suppression message for indicating that a network node has different identifiers in different protocols, the duplicate suppression message received from the network node across said computer network, said duplicate suppression message including: a first identifier that identifies the network node in a first protocol; and a second identifier that identifies the network node in a second protocol, wherein the first and second identifiers are either strings or hash values of the strings; receiving a first network resource message from said network node, said first network resource message comprising a third identifier identifying the network node in said first protocol; receiving a second network resource message from said network node, said second network resource message comprising a fourth identifier identifying the network node in said second protocol, wherein said second resource message does not have identical content to said first resource message; and in order to prevent network resource duplication, comparing respectively said first and second identifiers in said duplicate suppression message with the third and fourth identifiers in the first and second network resource messages to determine that said first network resource message and said second network resource message are from a single network node.