1. A method of operating a network management system, said network management system supporting the operations of an associated network comprising a plurality of network elements interconnected via respective communications paths, said method comprising the steps of responsive to a change in said network, identifying each of said network elements, obtaining from each of the identified network elements information indicative of at least (a) identities of components forming the network element, (b) identities of neighbor network elements and (c) configuration of the network element, and determining from the information obtained from each of the identified network elements the interconnections between network elements and the configuration of said network, in which said network may be one of a plurality of different network configurations, wherein said step of obtaining includes the step of communicating with a gateway network element to obtain said information, and wherein said information includes a cross-connect map associated with a respective data rate.