PATROL Visualis discovers the components of the network automatically at layers two and three based on the latest modeling and information exchange technologies (CIM, Corba, Java, XML). Once the topology has been settled, Visualis gathers performance and configuration data. This information is stored in a database, graphed and made immediately available to the Network Manager to visually view the network topology. Traffic flows can also be viewed to visualize how network traffic may be impacting application performance historically or in real time.