Patent ID: 7392539

Claim:
A method for selecting interconnectivity rules for a computer network environment and visualization on a display of a data processing system interconnectivity rules in an auto provisioning environment, comprising: selecting a network environment specification having characteristics describing said environment, said characteristics including: number of network security tiers, firewalls, and other network constraints; displaying a graphical representation of said selected network environment, including security tiers, and proposed firewalls, to a user on said display; selecting network objects for said selected network environment, said network objects being selected from a group of objects including: operating systems and other software applications having predefined or configurable characteristics including interconnectivity rules, and firewall rules; populating said displayed network environment with said selected objects; determining network interconnectivity requirements in said selected network environment for said selected objects from their characteristics; and displaying graphical visualizations of said selected objects and graphical visualizations of said network interconnectivity requirements of said objects in appropriate regions of said displayed network environment.