1. A method of generating information representative of a network, the method comprising the steps of: determining a first topology of the network; merging at least one pair of nodes of the first topology into a single node based on measures associated with respective edges connecting the nodes of the node pair to at least one neighbor node common to that pair; repeating the merging step for one or more additional pairs of nodes to produce a reduced network topology; and generating a representation of the reduced network topology.