Patent ID: 8762503

Claim:
A method, comprising: providing a database in a computer readable storage medium having information on components in the network and configuration settings for the components, wherein the database includes information on zones in which the components are included; for each zone indicated in the database and for each component in each zone, perform: determining whether the database has information on the component; performing a port and process login with the component in response to determining that the database does not have information on the component; adding information on the component to the database determined from the port and process login; accessing best practices rules in the computer readable storage medium indicating best practices configuration settings for the component in the network, wherein the best practices rules provide best practices configuration settings for zones; processing the database and the accessed best practices rules to determine whether the configuration settings for the component in the zone satisfies the best practices configuration settings for the component indicated in the best practices rules; and generating a report indicating whether the configuration settings of the components in the network satisfy the best practices configuration settings for the components indicated in the best practices rules.