Systems and methods for determining the physical location of a computer's network interfaces

• US 20010047407A1
• Filed: 04/23/2001
• Published: 11/29/2001
• Est. Priority Date: 04/24/2000
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Moore, Timothy M., Huitema, Christian, Eydelman, Vadim, Venable, Jeffrey C. Sr.
• Granted Patent: US 7,000,015 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/223
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0853 by actively collecting configuration information or by backing up configuration information
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/12 Discovery or management of network topologies

Abstract

A service is described that discovers the physical locations of a computer'"'"'s connections to logical networks and provides that information to applications. The service decides which method or methods for discovering physical location information are applicable to each network interface on the computer, applies those methods, and collects the results. The results are then converted into a common format. In addition to physical location, the information may include estimates of the quality and reliability of the information, such as error ranges and confidence intervals, and the methods used to gather the information. The information is made available to whatever system services and applications need it. Clients of the physical location information may be notified when the information provided to them changes or when new information becomes available. Clients may specify a threshold so that location changes of a magnitude below the threshold are not reported to them.

Claims

1. A service provided to an application running on a computing device, the service comprising discovering information pertaining to a physical location of an interface on the computing device to a logical network, reporting to the application the discovered physical location information, and notifying the application when the reported physical location information changes.

2. The service of

claim 1

wherein the service discovers information pertaining to an error range of the information pertaining to the physical location of the interface and reports to the application information pertaining to the error range.

3. The service of

claim 1

wherein reporting discovered physical location information comprises reporting latitude, longitude, altitude, and a method used to discover the physical location information.

4. The service of

claim 1

wherein reporting comprises recording what information was reported to what application and wherein notifying comprises checking records of what information was reported to what application.

5. The service of

claim 1

further comprising consulting a reporting threshold set by the application and reporting only those changes whose magnitude exceeds the reporting threshold.

6. The service of

claim 1

further comprising consulting a list of physical location discovery methods applicable to the interface.

7. The service of

claim 6

wherein the service performs a plurality of physical location discovery methods listed as applicable to the interface, and wherein reporting comprises reporting to the application physical location information discovered from the plurality of methods.

8. The service of

claim 1

further comprising converting the discovered physical location information into a common format before reporting it to the application.

9. The service of

claim 1

further comprising notifying the application when information provided to it is supplemented by further information.

10. A computer-readable medium having instructions for providing a service to an application running on a computing device, the service comprising discovering information pertaining to a physical location of an interface on the computing device to a logical network, reporting to the application the discovered physical location information, and notifying the application when the reported physical location information changes.

11. A service provided to an application on a computing device, the service comprising discovering logical networks to which the computing device is attached, naming the logical networks in a manner that provides a mapping between the names given to the logical networks and the logical networks, discovering information about physical locations of interfaces on the computing device to the logical networks, providing the names and physical location information about the logical network interfaces to the application, and notifying the application when the information provided to it changes.

12. A computer-readable medium having computer-executable instructions for providing the service of

claim 11

.

13. A method for an application running on a computing device to choose a configuration to use, the method comprising accessing a service provided by the computing device to retrieve physical location information about an interface on the computing device attached to a network, accessing a list that relates physical location to stored application configurations, and choosing a configuration that is related to the physical location of the network interface.

14. The method of

claim 13

wherein the service informs the application when the physical location information provided to the application changes.

15. A computer-readable medium having computer-executable instructions for providing the method of

claim 13

.

16. A computer-readable medium having stored thereon a data structure, the data structure comprising:

a first data field containing data representing a name of a logical network to which a computing device is connected;

a second data field containing data representing a globally unique identifier of an interface on the computing device through which the logical network is accessible; and

a third data field containing data representing a physical location of the interface on the computing device through which the logical network is accessible.

17. The data structure of

claim 16

further comprising:

a fourth data field containing data representing a type of connection from the computing device to the logical network; and

a fifth data field containing data representing a speed of the connection from the computing device to the logical network.