Automated Service Discovery for Enterprise Network Management

A networks link-layer topology is a superset of its network-layer topology. However, it is generally much easier to reconstruct the network-layer topology of a network than its link-layer topology, primarily because routers exchange among themselves the routing table information but switches dont. An obvious application of network topology information is to provide a context for displaying and analyzing traffic load data. Another application is to support impact analysis, e.g. what services will be disrupted if a network device such as a switch is pulled off for maintenance. However, such impact analysis requires network service map information in addition to network topology information. A network service is any program providing a service to remote machines over the network, and ranges from Link-layer services such as DHCP and AAA and Network-layer services such as DNS, to Application-layer services such as SMTP server, Web server, VoIP server, Terminal service, NFS server, directory server, DBMS server, etc. Given an enterprise or data center