alternatively if the discovery type is set to a range of addresses 903 then the oui checks for weapons simulated weapons sensors and other ouis 904 using a range of ip addresses for configurations with named weapons simulated weapons sensors and ouis i e if discovery type is dns 905 then the oui checks for weapons sensors and ouis via dns 906 in the case of a standalone video surveillance system an operator user interface coupled with network 152 in fig1 would include obtaining a list of sensors weapons and simulated weapons by discovering vs 1 through step 902 904 or 906 in other words a component in the system may be discovered on the network and act as a proxy to other components on the network another embodiment of the invention may use any combination of these discovery types in dynamically locating weapons simulated weapons sensors and other ouis other embodiments of the invention may use other types of name servers or directories other than dns and make these servers directories available on the network once the weapons simulated weapons sensors and ouis in the configuration have been found they are presented on the oui at 907 this may for example include the use of glyphs or icons or lists thereof to graphically show the existing elements in the system alternatively this may involve non visual elements such as computer generated audio if the weapon simulated weapon sensor or oui set has changed 908 then weapons simulated weapons sensors and ouis that are no longer available are presented as such 909 and weapons simulated weapons sensors and ouis that are now available are presented as such 910 once the environment has been discovered and.