aspects of the present invention provide a ring supervisor operating as a server for maintaining and allocating addresses for devices in a ring topology . the ring supervisor may obtain an ordered list of devices in the ring by sending a data collection frame that passes through each device around the ring with each device appending its preconfigured address information . the ring supervisor may then operate to apply the addressing provided by each device , or alternatively , allocate different addresses to each device from a separate pool . as a result , control program software for ring devices can be developed using a general pool of addresses without requiring specific knowledge of actual addresses . also , if a device requires replacement , the device may be replaced without requiring modification to the control program to provide the address for the replacement device .