A system and method for automatic detection of physical network topology. Information is gathered through the operation of several agents, which are distributed throughout the network and which are operated by a computer connected to the network. Preferably, the agents exchange information in order to at least partially determine the physical topology of the network. In addition, information is gathered from other sources of physical topology information, such as bridging tables from network switches. The physical topology is built by first determining the relative location of the agents. Next, switches and other connectivity elements are added in order to connect these segments, and additional segments are created from other sources of information. The remaining connections are then determined. Thus, a map is automatically constructed of the physical topology of the network.
AUTOMATIC NETWORK TOPOLOGY ANALYSIS