Methods and systems for discovering whether a given connection to an InfiniBand port is a standard InfiniBand connection or a non-standard connection (e.g., indicating the presence of a proprietary device) are provided. The discovery may be performed by an end node, such that the end node interoperates with all standard InfiniBand components. Specific actions that are vendor unique, and potentially not compliant with the InfiniBand architecture, may not be done until after the discovery is complete and it has been verified that the noncompliant action will only be directed to entities know to be capable of processing them. These actions may include assuming the configuration responsibilities that would have been performed by the Subnet Manager in a standard InfiniBand network.