INTEGRATION AGENT DEVICE FOR NODE INCLUDING MULTI-LAYERED EQUIPMENT AND FAULT MANAGEMENT METHOD THEREOF

• US 20100162051A1
• Filed: 08/19/2009
• Published: 06/24/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 12/22/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute
• Original Assignee: Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute
• Inventors: YOON, Seung Hyun, CHUNG, Hyung Seok, JEONG, You Hyeon
• Granted Patent: US 8,595,568 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 714/47
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/00 Data switching networks interconnection of, or transfer of information or other signals between, memories, input/output devices or central processing units G06F13/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/2803 Home automation networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/00 Arrangements for maintenance, administration or management of data switching networks, e.g. of packet switching networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/044 comprising hierarchical management structures
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/052 using standardised network management architectures, e.g. telecommunication management network [TMN] or unified network management architecture [UNMA]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0622 based on time
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/00 Arrangements for monitoring or testing data switching networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/40 for recovering from a failure of a protocol instance or entity, e.g. service redundancy protocols, protocol state redundancy or protocol service redirection management of faults, events, alarms or notifications in data switching networks H04L41/06

Abstract

An integration agent device and its fault management method for a node including multi-layered devices are disclosed to effectively control a node including two or more communication devices of different layers and integrally processing relevant fault information. The integration agent device includes: one or more control and management modules controlling and managing one or more communications network devices by layer; and an inter-layer interworking processing module integrating and processing information of the communications network devices by using inter-layer interworking information, and notifying a management system accordingly, wherein the information of the communications network devices is transmitted through the one or more control and management.

Claims

1. An integration agent device for a node including multi-layered devices, the device comprising:

one or more control and management modules controlling and managing one or more communications network devices by layer; and

an inter-layer interworking processing module integrating and processing information of the communications network devices by using inter-layer interworking information, and notifying a management system accordingly, wherein the information of the communications network devices is transmitted through the one or more control and management modules.

2. The device of claim 1, wherein the one or more control and management modules respectively connected to one or more communications network devices processing different layers in a single node, to perform a control and management plane function with respect to each communications network device or perform a relay function with a control/management plane of each communications network device.

3. The device of claim 1, wherein the inter-layer interworking processing module processes a cooperative operation between the respective layers through the one or more control and management modules, integrates and processes the information of the communications network devices by using inter-layer interworking information, and notifies the management system accordingly.

4. The device of claim 3, wherein when fault information is received from a communications network device, the inter-layer interworking processing module determines whether the received fault information has been created due to a fault of only a corresponding layer or whether it has been created due to a fault of a different layer which has spread, and if the received fault information has been created due to the fault of only the corresponding layer, the inter-layer interworking processing module processes the received fault information into node fault information, whereas if the received fault information has been created due to the fault of the different layer which has spread, the inter-layer interworking processing module extracts relevant fault information, processes node fault information, and provides the node fault information to the management system.

5. The device of claim 4, wherein when the inter-layer interworking processing module processes the received fault information or relevant fault information into the node fault information, it changes the IP address of a device into a representative IP address of the node, in the received fault information or relevant fault information.

6. The device of claim 4, wherein the inter-layer interworking processing module processes the relevant fault information of a lowermost layer into the node fault information and deletes fault information of other remaining layers so as not to notify the management information about it.

7. The device of claim 4, wherein when the inter-layer interworking processing module processes the received fault information or relevant fault information into the node fault information, it changes a fault level of the fault information to a lower level.

8. The device of claim 4, wherein the inter-layer interworking processing module changes node control information, generated by the management system, into device control information, applies the device control information to the communications network devices, processes an operation result into node information, and notifies the communications network devices of the node information.

9. A fault management method of an integration agent device that relays a node including multi-layered devices of one or more communications network devices each handling a different layer and a management system, the method comprising:

a reception step of receiving fault information notified from the one or more communications network devices;

an integration and processing step of collecting the fault information and relevant fault information of a lower layer, integrating the fault information and the relevant fault information, and processing the integrated information into node fault information; and

a notifying step of providing the node fault information to the management system.

10. The method of claim 9, further comprising:

a recording step of recording the received fault information in a fault log.

11. The method of claim 9, wherein the integration and processing step comprises:

determining whether the fault information has been created due to a fault of only a corresponding communications network equipment or whether it has been created due to a fault of a different layer which has spread; and

if it is determined that the fault information has been created due to the fault of only the corresponding communications network equipment, processing the received fault information into node fault information, while if it is determined that the fault information has been created due to the fault of the different layer which has spread, processing relevant fault information into node fault information.

12. The method of claim 9, wherein the integration and processing step comprises:

determining whether or not the fault information has been generated from an uppermost layer;

if it is determined that the fault information has not been generated from the uppermost layer, recording the fault information in a temporary fault information and waiting for a pre-set time;

when the pre-set time elapses, extracting the fault information and relevant fault information of a different layer from the temporary fault information by using inter-layer resource relevant information;

if the fault information and the relevant fault information are not extracted from the temporary fault information, determining that the fault information has been integrated and terminating the operation, while if the fault information and the relevant fault information are extracted from the temporary fault information, processing the fault information and the relevant fault information into node fault information;

if it is determined that the fault information has been generated from the uppermost layer according to the determination result, referring to a relevant fault of a lower layer by using the temporary fault information and the inter-layer resource relevant information;

if there is no relevant fault of the lower layer upon reference, determining that the fault information has been created due to the fault of only the corresponding communications network equipment and processing it into node fault information; and

if there is a relevant fault of the lower layer upon reference, determining that the fault information has been created due to a fault of a different layer, extracting information of the relevant fault, and processing it into node fault information.

13. The method of claim 11, wherein, in the step of processing into the node fault information, the IP address of a device is changed into a representative IP address of the node in the received fault information or relevant fault information.

14. The method of claim 11, wherein, in the step of processing fault information into the node fault information, only fault information of a lowermost layer in the relevant fault information is processed into the node fault information, and fault information of other remaining layers is deleted.

15. The method of claim 11, wherein, in the step of processing fault information into the node fault information, the fault level of the fault information of other remaining layers is changed to be lower.

16. The method of claim 9, further comprises;

changing node control information, generated by a management system, into device control information, and applying the device control information to the one or more communications network devices; and

processing an operation result of the one or more communications network devices into node information in order to notify to the management system.