NETWORK MANAGEMENT SYSTEM UTILIZING NOTIFICATION BETWEEN FAULT MANAGER FOR PACKET SWITCHING NODES OF THE HIGHER-ORDER NETWORK LAYER AND FAULT MANAGER FOR LINK OFFERING NODES OF THE LOWER-ORDER NETWORK LAYER

• US 6,898,630 B2
• Filed: 02/27/2001
• Issued: 05/24/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 07/18/2000
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Fujitsu Limited
• Original Assignee: Fujitsu Limited
• Inventors: Ueno, Hitoshi, Fukuda, Kenichi, Iseda, Kohei
• Primary Examiner(s): El-Hady, Nabil
• Application Number:
  US09/794,860
• Publication Number:
  US 20020010770A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,547 Days
• Field of Search: 709/223, 709/224, 709/226, 709/229, 709/232, 709200-253, 714/4
• US Class Current: 709/223
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/044 comprising hierarchical management structures
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/06 Management of faults, events, alarms or notifications

Abstract

In a network management system performing a fault management process in a hierarchical network, an upper layer fault manager performs a fault management of an upper layer of a hierarchical network, a lower layer fault manager performs a fault management of a lower layer of the network, an inter-layer node connecting information storage portion manages connecting information between packet switching nodes composing the upper layer and link offering nodes composing the lower layer, and an inter-layer fault notifying portion notifies the upper layer fault manager, upon receiving a notification of a link fault which has occurred on a link between the link offering nodes from the lower layer fault manager, that the packet switching nodes affected by the fault are faulted, based on the connecting information.

Claims

1. A network management system comprising:

an upper layer fault manager for performing a fault management of an upper layer of a hierarchical network,

a lower layer fault manager for performing a fault management of a lower layer of the network,

an inter-layer node connecting information storage portion for managing connecting information between packet switching nodes composing the upper layer and link offering nodes composing the lower layer, and

an inter-layer fault notifying portion for notifying the upper layer fault manager, upon receiving a notification of a link fault which has occurred on a link between the link offering nodes from the lower layer fault manager, that the packet switching nodes affected by the fault are faulted, based on the connecting information.

2. The network management system as claimed in claim 1 wherein the inter-layer fault notifying portion retrieves the link offering nodes affected by the link fault from lower layer connecting information of a lower layer connecting information storage portion included in the lower layer fault manager, and recognizes the packet switching nodes affected by the link fault by retrieving the information of the inter-layer node connecting information storage portion with the affected link offering nodes.

3. The network management system as claimed in claim 2, further comprising an affected node information storage portion for preliminarily associating each link with the packet switching nodes affected by the link fault based on respectively stored information of the lower layer connecting information storage portion and the inter-layer node connecting information storage portion,

the inter-layer fault notifying portion extracting the packet switching nodes affected by the link fault from the affected node information storage portion without using the respectively stored information of the lower layer connecting information storage portion and the inter-layer node connecting information storage portion.

4. The network management system as claimed in claim 1, further comprising an alternate route information storage portion where each link is associated with a packet switching node on an alternate route at a time of the link fault,

the inter-layer fault notifying portion instructing the upper layer fault manager to set predetermined information related to a communication quality to the packet switching node on the alternate route extracted from the alternate route information storage portion at the time of the link fault.

5. The network management system as claimed in claim 1 wherein when a fault occurs in the lower layer, the inter-layer fault notifying portion does not notify the upper layer fault manager of the fault in case an alternate routing at a link offering node in the lower layer is performed.

6. The network management system as claimed in claim 4 wherein the predetermined information comprises priority information.

7. The network management system as claimed in claim 4 wherein the predetermined information comprises bandwidth guaranteeing information.

8. The network management system as claimed in claim 4 wherein when a plurality of alternate routes exist for an arbitrary link, the alternate route information storage portion stores a shortest alternate route where a hop count becomes minimum in correspondence with the link.

9. The network management system as claimed in claim 8 wherein the shortest alternate route is obtained by using a Dijkstra algorithm.