Fault correlation system and method in packet switching networks

• US 5,949,759 A
• Filed: 11/19/1996
• Issued: 09/07/1999
• Est. Priority Date: 12/20/1995
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Cisco Technology, Inc. (Cisco Systems, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Sirot, Benoit, Cretegny, Andre, Wozelka, Gilles, Gallian, Catherine, Nicolas, Laurent, Ouvry, Yves
• Primary Examiner(s): Olms, Douglas W.
• Assistant Examiner(s): HOM, SHICK C
• Application Number:
  US08/752,404
• Time in Patent Office: 1,022 Days
• Field of Search: 370/216, 370/218, 370/241, 370/244, 370/250, 370/507, 370/520, 371/20.1, 371/22.4, 371/25.1, 371/26
• US Class Current: 370/250
• 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 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

In case of a failure in a high speed packet switching network, the failure information provided by the multiplicity of resources is registered in the access nodes of the network. The failure information can be retrieved by the network management on request for fault correlation. A plurality of alarms flooding the network management when a failure occurs is thus avoided.

Claims

1. A method of identifying a connection failure in a network having a plurality of network nodes interconnected by a plurality of links over which connections between source and destination nodes are established, the method being implemented in each of the network nodes adjacent the connection failure and comprising the steps of:

upon detection of the failure, storing failure-related information in local memory;

generating a correlation key based on the stored failure-related information to uniquely identify the connection failure; and

transmitting the correlation key to each node in the network still accessible through a connection affected by the failure.

2. A method as set forth in claim 1 including the additional step of sending a failure alarm to a network management system.

3. A method as set forth in claim 2 wherein the correlation key includes a two part link identifier, the first part identifying the link affected by the failure from the perspective of the local node and the second part identifying the link affected by the failure from the perspective of the remote node also adjacent the connection failure, the two parts providing in combination a unique identifier of the connection failure.