Patent ID: 7260628

Claim:
A heterogeneous network including hardware and software products from a plurality of vendors, the network comprising: first and second storage systems configured to store data, the first and second storage systems being associated with different vendors, each storage system having a plurality of ports and a plurality of disk drives; at least one server configured to process requests; first and second switches coupling the first and second storage systems and the server for data communication, the first and second switches being associated with different vendors; each switch having a plurality of ports; and a network manager including first and second event dictionaries associated with the first and second storage systems, respectively; wherein an event message of a first type is generated in response to a failure of one of the disk drives within the first storage system, and the network manager is configured to identify the disk drive within the first storage system experiencing the failure by interpreting the event message of the first type using the first event dictionary, wherein an event message of a second type is generated in response to a failure of one of the disk drives within the second storage system, and the network manager is configured to identify the disk drive within the second storage system experiencing the failure by interpreting the event message of the second type using the second event dictionary.