Abstract: A system may be provided in which an industrial control network may be discovered and characterized such that useful networking data may be presented to a user and/or monitored for events. By configuring an interrogator device to send a “generic” message to ranges of network locations, presences of devices at particular locations may be determined. The generic message may direct any of numerous devices types to provide a response including multiple parameters. The interrogator may store such parameters in “data records,” and may advantageously send periodic collections of data records, or “data sets,” to a processing manager. The processing manager, in turn, may communicate with one or more data structures to format, enrich and/or monitor the networking data to more conveniently and reliably capture and maintain networks and connected devices.

Abstract: A system may be provided in which an industrial control network may be discovered and characterized such that useful networking data may be presented to a user and/or monitored for events. By configuring an interrogator device to send a “generic” message to ranges of network locations, presences of devices at particular locations may be determined. The generic message may direct any of numerous devices types to provide a response including multiple parameters. The interrogator may store such parameters in “data records,” and may advantageously send periodic collections of data records, or “data sets,” to a processing manager. The processing manager, in turn, may communicate with one or more data structures to format, enrich and/or monitor the networking data to more conveniently and reliably capture and maintain networks and connected devices.