Alarm filter in an expert system for communications network

• US 5,388,189 A
• Filed: 10/28/1993
• Issued: 02/07/1995
• Est. Priority Date: 12/06/1989
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Nextiraone France (Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Racal-Datacom, Inc. (Thales SA)
• Inventors: Kung, Ching Y.
• Primary Examiner(s): MacDonald, Allen R.
• Assistant Examiner(s): Downs, Robert W.
• Application Number:
  US08/142,565
• Time in Patent Office: 467 Days
• Field of Search: 395/916, 395/917, 395/50, 395/917, 395/908, 395/909, 340/517, 340/521, 340/506, 340/522, 371/4
• US Class Current: 706/45
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/2257 using expert systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/327 Alarm or error message display
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0631 using root cause analysis; using analysis of correlation between notifications, alarms or events based on decision criteria, e.g. hierarchy, tree or time analysis
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0659 by isolating or reconfiguring faulty entities
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/16 using machine learning or artificial intelligence
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/00 Arrangements for monitoring or testing data switching networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0829 Packet loss
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/106 using time related information in packets, e.g. by adding timestamps
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/50 Testing arrangements
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 706/908 Electronic or computer, internal or network, circuit
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 706/909 Communication
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 706/911 Nonmedical diagnostics
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 706/917 Communication

Abstract

An Expert System 10 for providing diagnostics to a data communications network 5. Alarms from a Network Manager 24 are received and queued by an Event Manager 117 and then filtered by an Alarm Filter 118 to remove redundant alarms. Alarms which are ready for processing are then posted to a queue referred to as a Bulletin Board 120. A Controller 112 determines which one of the posted goals has the highest priority by considering a priority number associated with the goal plus a time of arrival of the goal. An Inference Engine 122 uses information from an Expert Information Structure 111 to solve the highest priority goal by a process called instantiation.

Claims

1. In an expert system for providing diagnostic services for a communication network including a plurality of network devices capable of generating alarms in response to network problems, a method of processing said alarms reported from said network devices, comprising the steps of:

receiving a current said alarm from one of said network devices;

comparing said current alarm with other said alarms previously received from other said network devices to determine whether said current alarm corresponds to one of said previously received alarms in that both said current alarm and said previously received alarms serve to report a common said network problem in said network;

said comparing step further including retrieving information from a database regarding a portion of said network'"'"'s topology and determining from said portion if any of said network devices providing said previously received alarms and said one network device producing said current alarm could produce said previously received alarms and said current alarm, respectively, in response to said common network problem; and

discarding said current alarm if said current alarm and any of said previously received alarms are determined to be in produced by said common common problem.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein said comparing step compares a time of occurrence of said current alarm with times of occurrence of said previously received alarms.