System and method for supporting node role attributes in a high performance computing environment. In accordance with an embodiment, a node role attribute can comprise a vendor defined subnet management attribute. When a subnet manager attempts to discover a high performance computing environment, such as an InfiniBand subnet, or a switch topology, identifying a topology is quite complex when subnet manager can only observe connectivity, without context behind the connectivity (the roles of the different nodes in the connectivity). However, when a subnet has a node role attribute enabled, the subnet manager can map the interconnect more effectively as it can discover not only the connectivity during the initial sweep, but it can also discover the role of each node discovered, thus leading to a more efficient interconnect discovery.