Method, apparatus and computer program for informing a requesting device of port configuration changes in a computer network switching device

摘要

A method, apparatus, and computer program device enabling a computer network switching device to inform an attached requesting device of switch ports affected by configuration changes during the period of time since the last query by the particular requesting device. The switch device is initialized with a change index and data vector, the latter indicative of an initial port configuration. The switch increments the index in response to subsequent port configuration change events, and stores in association with the incremented index a data vector indicating the ports changed during the corresponding event. The switch stores an array of associated index and vector values. The switch responds to a query from an attached requesting device by informing the requesting device of specific ports affected by one or more configuration changes since the index value held by the requesting device was the current index value in the switch.