Method and apparatus for tracking connection-oriented communications configurations

Abstract

A network is monitored for reports indicative of a connection state among ports of a communications network. Certain ports are designated as being in a transition, and a transition table is created for each transition. The transition table includes locations that directly relate the connectivity of a first port with respect to a second port, as well as locations that relate the connectivity of other ports. The contents of the transition table are evaluated to determine the likely configuration of the communications network. State machines may be used to resolve conflicting data within the transition table, by providing a likely connection output based upon different entries within the transition table. A voting scheme is used to evaluate the outputs of the state machines and update the transition table when appropriate, and the updated transition table may also be evaluated.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.