Patent ID: 7483970

Claim:
A method comprising: creating a plurality of component fingerprints, wherein the plurality of component fingerprints includes a fingerprint for a first component, wherein creating the fingerprint for the first component comprises identifying a plurality of attributes of the first component and selecting one or more of the plurality of attributes as the fingerprint for the first component; automatically discovering the existence of a plurality of components in an information technology (IT) system using the plurality of component fingerprints, wherein the discovered components include the first component, wherein automatically discovering the existence of the first component comprises: receiving a plurality of event messages indicating a plurality of real-time events that occur in the IT system, wherein each event message matches a respective attribute of the fingerprint for the first component; and determining that event messages matching every attribute of the fingerprint for the first component have been received; wherein the method further comprises: automatically determining at least one dependency between two or more of the discovered components; and tracking changes to at least one of the discovered components and the at least one dependency between two or more of the discovered components.