The invention concerns a method whereby each module is determined from the address of the module located immediately upstream in the networked relative to the central unit, the detected address being transmitted by the upstream module in an attribution message, which triggers off an automatic search phase for the module without address, nearest downstream to a module with an address, during which each downstream module without address receives (50) the address attribution message, triggers (52) a delay whereof the duration is so much longer if the received message reception is low, and if at the end (54) of the delay, no address capture message is detected (53), it transmits (56) such a message, stores (57) the received address, determines the address of the nearest downstream module without address, and triggers (30) the search phase for the nearest downstream module without address.

A software facility for automatically identifying subnetworks in a network is described. The facility receives a plurality of addresses of hosts in the network, and accesses a binary tree. The nodes of the binary tree each represent a range of addresses within the network. A facility traverses the binary tree to identify candidate nodes where both child nodes have one or more descendent leaf nodes representing host addresses. The facility tests the address range represented by each candidate node visited in the traversal to determine whether the address range is a subnet address range for a subnet being used on the network. If testing indicates that a visited candidate node represents such an address range, the facility identifies the visited candidate node as a subnet node. The facility skips, in the traversal, any candidate notes that are descendents of an identified subnet node.

A method of generating relay paths among a plurality of participants in multi-transmission is provided for transmitting predetermined data to the participants. The method includes a first step of analyzing access paths of the participants; a second step of generating a binary tree structure of relay paths among participants belonging to each subnet group; a third step of arranging gateways on the access paths of the participants according to the order on a connection path connecting the gateways to a data server; a fourth step of classing gateways, which are connected to the same upper gateway and are at the same level as a result of the arrangement, as a subordinate set of the upper gateway; and a fifth step of calculating the number of hops of each gateway within the subordinate set to a corresponding subnet group and generating a binary tree structure of relay paths starting from a gateway having relatively fewer hops toward a gateway having relatively more hops.

A method and system for managing the routing of traffic within a network develops a topological address space map of the network to enable a "best route" selection process. The network is comprised of a backbone connected to a plurality of peering partners. Points on the network monitor traffic flows. A central facility analyzes the traffic flows and routes within the network and performs intelligent routing management.Intelligent routing management ensures that traffic is properly routed through preferred routes on the network, and avoids inefficient routing. Intelligent routing management also selects new routes to be injected into the network in order to further improve the accuracy of the address space map of the network. Intelligent routing management ensures that bandwidth is requested and delivered topologically closely to peering partner networks, and that traffic is carried by the backbone for long haul data distribution in both directions.