Fault management in a VDSL network

• US 6,981,039 B2
• Filed: 08/01/2001
• Issued: 12/27/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 08/01/2000
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Qwest Communications International Incorporated (Lumen Technologies, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Qwest Communications International Incorporated (Lumen Technologies, Inc.)
• Inventors: Storaasli, Roxanna, Figueroa, Timothy, Cerami, Richard S.
• Primary Examiner(s): Najjar, Saleh
• Assistant Examiner(s): NGUYEN, THU HA T
• Application Number:
  US09/921,276
• Publication Number:
  US 20020073062A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,609 Days
• Field of Search: 709/223, 709/224, 370/216, 370/218, 370/225, 714/47, 714/2, 714/27, 714/44, 714/56, 714/100, 379/9, 379/9.03
• US Class Current: 709/223
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/087 Inventory or stock management, e.g. order filling, procurement or balancing against orders
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/66 Arrangements for connecting between networks having differing types of switching systems, e.g. gateways
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/06 Management of faults, events, alarms or notifications
• 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 41/0654 using network fault recovery ring fault isolation or reconfiguration in loop networks without recovery actions by a network management system H04L12/437
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0896 Bandwidth or capacity management, i.e. automatically increasing or decreasing capacities flow or congestion control using dynamic resource allocation, e.g. in-call renegotiation, H04L47/76
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/12 Discovery or management of network topologies
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/32 Specific management aspects for broadband networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/40 using virtualisation of network functions or resources, e.g. SDN or NFV entities
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5003 Managing SLA; Interaction between SLA and QoS
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5009 Determining service level performance parameters or violations of service level contracts, e.g. violations of agreed response time or mean time between failures [MTBF]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5025 by proactively reacting to service quality change, e.g. by reconfiguration after service quality degradation or upgrade
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5032 Generating service level reports
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5061 characterised by the interaction between service providers and their network customers, e.g. customer relationship management
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5067 Customer-centric QoS measurements
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/507 Filtering out customers affected by service problems
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5074 Handling of user complaints or trouble tickets
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/509 wherein the managed service relates to media content delivery, e.g. audio, video or TV
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/00 Arrangements for monitoring or testing data switching networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0811 by checking connectivity
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0817 : by checking functioning
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0823 : Errors, e.g. transmission errors
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0882 : Utilisation of link capacity
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/091 : Measuring contribution of individual network components to actual service level
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/10 : Active monitoring, e.g. heartbeat, ping or trace-route
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/16 : Threshold monitoring
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/20 : the monitoring system or the monitored elements being virtualised, abstracted or software-defined entities, e.g. SDN or NFV
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/50 : Testing arrangements
• 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
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 11/062 : using different frequency bands for speech and other data
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/6125 : involving transmission via Internet transmission by internet of broadcast information H04H60/82
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/6473 : Monitoring network processes errors for recovering from a failure of a protocol instance or entity H04L69/40
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/64738 : Monitoring network characteristics, e.g. bandwidth, congestion level data switched network analysis H04L41/14; monitoring functioning in data switched networks H04L43/0817; flow control in packet networks H04L47/10
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99931 : Database or file accessing

Abstract

A method for managing a plurality of failures in a video and data network is provided. The method includes discovering a failure in the video and data network. The discovered failure is the root cause of the failure. Next, the root cause failure is correlated with the plurality of failures to determine related failures generated as a result of the root cause failure. The related failures are then suppressed. One or more user'"'"'s affected by the root cause failure are determined. If the root cause failure is automatically resolvable, the root cause failure is automatically resolved.

Claims

1. A method for managing failures in a video and data network comprising:

discovering a failure in the video and data network, wherein the failure is a root cause;

after discovering the root cause failure, correlating the root cause failure with one or more failures to determine related failures that are generated as a result of the root cause failure;

determining one or more customers using the video and data network affected by the root cause failure;

wherein determining one or more customers affected by the failure comprises using customer data to correlate the one or more customers to the failure;

suppressing the related failures;

determining if the root cause failure is automatically resolvable; and

if the root cause failure is automatically resolvable, resolving the root cause failure, wherein resolving the root cause failure resolves the related failures.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the video and data network comprises a Digital Subscriber Line (xDSL) network.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the video and data network comprises a Very high bit rate DSL (VDSL) network.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising creating a repair ticket for the root cause failure.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein correlating the failure comprises:

interacting with a physical network transport inventory; and

determining upstream and downstream physical network elements from the failure.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein correlating the failure comprises:

correlating related failures from the upstream and downstream physical network elements with the failure.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising notifying the one or more customers affected by the failure.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising opening a repair ticket in one or more records of the one or more customers affected by the failure.

9. The method of claim 8, further comprising determining when the failure was resolved.

10. The method of claim 9, further comprising closing the repair ticket in the one or more records of the one or more customers affected by the failure when the failure has been resolved.

11. The method of claim 10, further comprising notifying the one or more customers affected by the failure when the failure is resolved.

12. The method of claim 9, further comprising validating the resolution of the failure.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein validating the resolution of the failure comprises testing a physical connectivity of the video and data network.

14. The method of claim 12, wherein validating the resolution of the failure comprises testing a virtual connectivity of the video and data network.

15. The method of claim 1, further comprising storing the failure in a history of failures.

16. A method for managing alarms in a video and data network comprising:

receiving an alarm from a network element in the video and data network;

determining if the alarm is a root cause alarm;

if the alarm is not a root cause alarm, determining the root cause alarm, the root cause alarm being a root cause of the alarm;

correlating the root cause alarm with one or more alarms to determine related alarms generated as a result of the root cause alarm;

determining one or more customers receiving services from the video and data network that are affected by the root cause alarm;

wherein determining one or more customers affected by the alarm comprises using customer data to correlate the one or more customers to the alarm;

determining if the root cause alarm is automatically resolvable; and

if the root cause alarm is automatically resolvable, resolving the root cause alarm, wherein the resolution resolves any alarms affecting the one or more customers receiving services from the video and data network, wherein the one or more alarms are resolved by resolving the root cause alarm.

17. A telecommunications device for managing failures in a video and data network, the telecommunications device comprising:

logic to discover a failure in the video and data network, wherein the failure is a root cause

after discovering the root cause failure, logic to correlate the root cause failure with one or more failures to determine related failures that are generated as a result of the root cause failure;

logic to determine one or more customers using the video and data network affected by the root cause failure;

wherein logic to determine one or more customers affected by the failure comprises logic to use customer data to correlate the one or more customers to the failure;

logic to suppress the related failures;

logic to determine if the root cause failure is automatically resolvable; and

if the root cause failure is automatically resolvable, logic to resolve the root cause failure, wherein resolving the root cause failure resolves the related failures.

18. The telecommunications device of claim 17, wherein the video and data network comprises a Digital Subscriber Line (xDSL) network.

19. The telecommunications device of claim 17, wherein the video and data network comprises a Very high bit rate DSL (VDSL) network.

20. The telecommunications device of claim 17, further comprising logic to create a repair ticket for the root cause failure.

21. The telecommunications device of claim 17, wherein logic to correlate the failure comprises:

logic to interact with a physical network transport inventory; and

logic to determine upstream and downstream physical network elements from the failures.

22. The telecommunications device of claim 17, further comprising logic to notify the one or more customers affected by the failure.