Patent ID: 8352587

Claim:
A method of assigning addresses to entities in a network, the method comprising: utilizing a server for defining an address space comprising a set of strings having a topological structure; defining a set of entities in the network, each entity to be identified by an associated, respective address assigned thereto; defining a mapping function, the mapping function being defined with a range of the address space and a domain of the entities, and having the properties of a topology; and assigning respective addresses to the entities based on the mapping function, such that the addresses assigned to the entities are topologically dependent, wherein the network of entities is expandable in a repeatable manner to establish a recursive layered structure, wherein each of the entities is substantially the same and provides interprocess communication service resources to an adjacent layer of the recursive layered structure, wherein the network of entities is partitioned into at least two disjoint subsets of entities, such that each entity in one subset communicates with other entities in said one subset using an address that is selected from the address space, wherein each entity in the one subset is assigned one address from the address space that is unique within the one subset, wherein each of the at least two disjoint subsets of entities represents a layer of the recursive layered structure, wherein addresses in a first layer of the recursive layered structure are assigned based on being related to addresses in an immediately adjacent second layer of the recursive layered structure using a topological mapping between the first and second layers, and wherein a number of addressable elements within the subsets of entities remains substantially constant as a number of the network entities increases due to network expansion.