Patent ID: 7496049

Claim:
A method in a data processing system for selectively updating information pertaining to computer devices in a group of said computer devices connectible to a specified transmission network, wherein each device is disposed to transmit packets to a router in a set of routers included in said network and each packet contains an element uniquely identifying its transmitting computer device, said method comprising the steps of: maintaining an inventory that includes information identifying at least some of said computer devices as assets of an entity associated with said specified network; acquiring data contained in one or more ARP caches at selected intervals, wherein each of said ARP caches is associated with one of said routers, wherein said step of acquiring data comprises taking snapshots, by the data processing system, of data contents of respective ARP caches at selected intervals to form acquired cache data at the data processing system, and wherein said intervals are respectively selected to ensure that each of said snapshots is taken before the data contents of the respective ARP caches are removed by periodic flush events; processing said acquired cache data to detect all of said elements contained therein that respectively identify said computer devices to form detected identifying elements, wherein said detected identifying elements comprise respective MAC addresses for said computer devices, wherein said processing step comprises detecting each MAC address that is contained in said acquired cache data; constructing a database from said acquired cache data that includes said detected identifying elements, and further includes information indicating prior use of each computer device identified by said detected identifying elements, wherein the prior use includes (i) a first indicator of a transmission time of a most recent packet sent by each computer device identified by one of said detected MAC addresses, (ii) a second indicator of a number of packets sent by said each computer device during a specified period of time, and (iii) router information indicating what respective router is associated with said each MAC address; and comparing information contained in said database with information contained in said inventory, and selectively using results of said comparison to update said inventory (i) to identify the computer devices associated with the entity, and (ii) to indicate a level of activity for the computer devices associated with the entity.