A method and system for discovering resources connected to a distributed network having a plurality of subnets is provided. Resource discovery over a distributed network is facilitated by active simple discover agents (ASDAs), that are selected from candidate simple discovery agents (SDAs) on the subnets. The ASDA discovers ASDAs on neighboring subnets. After determining neighboring ASDAs, an ASDA issues discovery search requests to the neighboring ASDAs. The neighboring ASDAs forward such requests onto their neighboring ASDAs to propagate a device discovery search request throughout a network comprising multiple subnets.