17. The system of claim 15 , wherein each identification module includes: a refine handler that is configured to provide an identification of each of the select entities in each of the first and second network models, and a match handler that is configured to compare entities in the first and second network models having corresponding identifications to further refine the identifications.
15. A system comprising: a plurality of identification modules, each identification module being configured to identify select matching entities of a first network model and a second network model, based on rules that are specific to the select entities, the second network model having a different arrangement of entities than the first network model, and the identification module establishes a correspondence between corresponding entities in each model, and a control engine that is configured to selectively enable each identification module in a sequence that effects an identification of each of the entities of the first network model and the second network model, and a difference processor that is configured to compare entities having corresponding identifications in each of the first and second network models, to determine configuration differences between corresponding entities of the first and second network models, wherein each of the first and second network models provides a high-fidelity representation of the actual network, and includes representations of physical devices and links between the devices, identifying select matching entities includes a sequence of refinements of objects in each of the first and second network models, the sequence of refinements correspond to mapping to different network entities, each refinement is based on a set of rules associated with the network entity corresponding to the refinement, and the mapping at each refinement includes: providing a label to each network object associated with the network entity, combining each label from each refinement of the sequence of refinements to identify each network object by a composite label, and identifying the matching entities in each of the first and second network models as those having the same composite label.