US Patent 9537720 Topology discovery for fault finding in virtual computing environments

Embodiments include methods of topology discovery in a virtual environment. Aspects include tracking change events, responsive to a change event, rediscovering dependencies between devices in the virtual environment and maintaining a dependency mapping between the devices. Aspects also include, responsive to a fault event, building a first topology model of the virtual environment and generating a first set of the devices which the first topology model is dependent on. Aspects also include, responsive to a resolution event, building a second topology model and generating a second set of the devices which the second topology model is dependent on. Aspects further include generating a fault device set by combining the first set and the second set, deleting any duplicate devices, and utilizing the generated fault device set to determine which of the devices are more likely to be associated with future fault events.