Trouble-ticket generation in network management environment

• US 7,301,909 B2
• Filed: 12/20/2002
• Issued: 11/27/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 12/20/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Compucom Systems Incorporated (The ODP Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Compucom Systems Incorporated (The ODP Corporation)
• Inventors: Warren, Daniel O, Langevin, Eugene J
• Primary Examiner(s): Levitan; Dmitry
• Application Number:
  US10/326,317
• Publication Number:
  US 20040120250A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,803 Days
• Field of Search: 370241-245, 370/216, 370/248, 370/250, 370/252, 370/253, 709223-225, 714/1, 714/2, 714/25, 714/47, 714/100
• US Class Current: 370/242
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0213 Standardised network management protocols, e.g. simple network management protocol [SNMP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0681 Configuration of triggering conditions

Abstract

The automatic generation and storage of bundled error messages indicative of fault conditions of one or more managed networks is disclosed. The error messages may provide more complete information relating to the managed networks such as information indicative of a detected fault condition as well as information describing the network on which the condition occurred. Fewer duplicative error messages are generated and the number of “false-positive” messages is reduced while still preserving and providing important fault condition information to operators.

Claims

1. A method of delivering a bundled error message to a network-management operator, the bundled error message comprising network fault data relating to a fault condition of a network and network-specific profile data corresponding to the network with the fault condition, the method comprising:

receiving fault data identifying the network with the fault condition;

delaying retrieval of the profile data for a predetermined time and terminating the method before retrieval of the profile data if related fault data, indicating that the fault condition has ceased, is received before the predetermined time has elapsed to thereby reduce the possibility that false-positive error messages may be generated;

retrieving predetermined network-specific profile data for the network with the fault condition;

generating a bundled error message including at least some of the fault and the profile data; and

displaying the bundled error message to the operator.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein

the method further comprises waiting for receipt of subsequent related fault data from the network before retrieving network-specific profile data;

responsive to receipt of the related fault data, the method further comprises generating modified fault data comprising the fault data and the related fault data; and

wherein generating a bundled error message comprises generating a single error message including at least some of the modified fault data and the profile data.

3. The method of claim 2 wherein

the related fault data and the fault data share attributes indicating that the same fault condition originated from plural locations of the network;

and

generating modified fault data comprises compressing plural instances of fault data into an aggregated origination data string indicating that plural locations of the network that have the same fault condition.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the predetermined time may be adjusted to thereby adjust the possibility that false-positive error messages may be generated.

5. The method of claim 1 further comprising filtering the fault data before retrieving network-specific profile data to thereby prevent retrieval of the network-specific profile data unless the fault data indicates that a device predetermined to be of interest has a fault condition.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein the network-specific profile data comprises data selected from the group consisting of:

internal line names, types and IP addresses;

internal site names, types and IP addresses;

internal station names, types and IP addresses; and

internal device names, types and IP addresses.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein the network-specific profile data comprises data selected from the group consisting of:

Connections, Site Info, Device Info, Line Info and History.

8. The method of claim 1 wherein the bundled error message comprises a trouble-ticket having history data relating to a past condition that has occurred at the same location as the current condition and wherein the past and current conditions are inverse conditions.

9. The method of claim 1 further comprising delaying retrieval of the profile data for a predetermined time and terminating the method if related fault data, inverse to the previously received fault data, is received before the predetermined time has elapsed.

10. The method of claim 1 wherein

the method further comprises waiting for receipt of subsequent related fault data from the network before retrieving network-specific profile data;

responsive to receipt of the related fault data, the method further comprises generating modified fault data comprising the fault data and the related fault data; and

wherein generating a bundled error message comprises generating a single error message including at least some of the modified fault data and the profile data.

11. A method of delivering a bundled error message to a network-management operator at a network operations center, the bundled error message comprising network fault data relating to a fault condition of a remote network comprising a host, a port, a station and a remote device, the error message further comprising network-specific profile data corresponding to the network component with the fault condition, the method comprising:

receiving fault data identifying the network component with the fault condition;

delaying retrieval of the profile data for a predetermined time and terminating the method if related fault data, inverse to the previously received fault data, is received before the predetermined time has elapsed;

retrieving network-specific profile data for the network component with the fault condition;

generating a bundled error message including at least some of the fault and profile data; and

displaying the bundled error message to the operator.

12. The method of claim 11 wherein

the method further comprises waiting for receipt of subsequent related fault data from the network before retrieving network-specific profile data;

responsive to receipt of the related fault data, the method further comprises generating modified fault data comprising the fault data and the related fault data; and

wherein generating a bundled error message comprises generating a single error message including at least some of the modified fault data and the profile data.

13. The method of claim 12 wherein

the related fault data and the fault data share attributes indicating that the same fault condition originated from plural locations of the network;

and

generating modified fault data comprises compressing plural instances of fault data into an aggregated origination data string plural locations of the network that have the same fault condition.

14. The method of claim 11 further comprising delaying retrieval of the profile data for a predetermined time and terminating the method before retrieval of the profile data if related fault data, indicating that the fault condition has ceased, is received before the predetermined time has elapsed to thereby reduce the possibility that false-positive error messages may be generated.

15. The method of claim 14 wherein the predetermined time may be adjusted to thereby adjust the possibility that false-positive error messages may be generated.

16. The method of claim 14 wherein

the method further comprises waiting for receipt of subsequent related fault data from the network before retrieving network-specific profile data;

responsive to receipt of the related fault data, the method further comprises generating modified fault data comprising the fault data and the related fault data; and

wherein generating a bundled error message comprises generating a single error message including at least some of the modified fault data and the profile data.

17. The method of claim 11 wherein the network-specific profile data comprises data selected from the group consisting of:

internal line names, types and IP addresses;

internal site names, types and IP addresses;

internal station names, types and IP addresses; and

internal device names, types and IP addresses.

18. The method of claim 11 wherein the network-specific profile data comprises data selected from the group consisting of:

Connections, Site Info, Device Info, Line Info and History.

19. A method of delivering an error message to a network-management operator, the message including fault data relating to fault conditions of a network and network-specific profile data corresponding to the network with the fault condition, the method comprising:

receiving fault data identifying fault conditions originating from locations within the network;

waiting a predetermined period of time;

terminating the method during the predetermined time period if related fault data, indicating that the fault condition has ceased, is received during the predetermined time;

responsive to passage of the predetermined time period, comparing the received fault data to the network-specific profile data and, if corresponding profile data is retrieved, generating a bundled error message for display to the operator including at least some of the received fault data and at least some of the retrieved profile data, and if corresponding profile data is not retrieved, generating a generic error message for display to the operator including at least some of the received fault data and indicating that a failure to retrieve corresponding profile data has occurred; and

responsive to a request to display the generated message, displaying the generated message to the operator.

20. The method of claim 19 further comprising setting an impairment level of the fault condition and including the impairment level in the generated error message, the impairment level being indicative of the severity of the fault condition.

21. The method of claim 19 wherein

related fault data is received during the predetermined period, the related fault data and the prior fault data sharing attributes indicating that the same fault condition originated from plural locations of the network;

and

the method further comprises generating modified fault data comprises compressing plural instances of fault data into an aggregated origination data string plural locations of the network that have the same fault condition.

22. The method of claim 19 wherein the predetermined time may be adjusted to thereby adjust the possibility that false-positive error messages may be generated.

23. The method of claim 19 further comprising filtering the fault data before retrieving network-specific profile data to thereby prevent retrieval of the network-specific profile data unless the fault data indicates that a device predetermined to be of interest has a fault condition.

24. The method of claim 19 wherein the network-specific profile data comprises data selected from the group consisting of:

internal line IP addresses;

internal site IP addresses;

internal station IP addresses; and

internal device IP addresses.

25. The method of claim 19 wherein the network-specific profile data comprises data selected from the group consisting of:

Connections, Site Info, Device Info, Line Info and History.

26. The method of claim 19 wherein the bundled error message comprises a trouble-ticket having history data relating to past fault conditions that have occurred at the same location as the current fault condition.

27. A computer readable medium containing a computer program for delivering a bundled error message to a network-management operator, the bundled error message comprising network fault data relating to a fault condition of a network and predetermined network-specific profile data corresponding to the network with the fault condition, the computer program comprising:

a module for receiving fault data identifying the network with the fault condition;

a module for delaying retrieval of the profile data for a predetermined time and terminating the method if related fault data, inverse to the previously received fault data, is received before the predetermined time has elapsed;

a module for retrieving network-specific profile data for the network with the fault condition;

a module for generating a bundled error message including at least some of the fault and profile data; and

a module for displaying the bundled error message to the operator.

28. The computer readable medium of claim 27 further comprising modules for delaying retrieval of the profile data for a predetermined time and for terminating the method if related fault data, inverse to the previously received fault data, is received before the predetermined time has elapsed.

29. The computer readable medium of claim 27 wherein the computer program further comprises:

a module, responsive to receipt of the fault data, for generating an acknowledgement having an error message identifier and indicating that the fault condition has been detected; and

a module for automatically transmitting the acknowledgement to the operator.

30. The computer readable medium of claim 27 wherein

the module for retrieving waits for receipt of related fault data from the network before retrieving network-specific profile data;

and

the computer program further comprises a module, responsive to receipt of related fault data, for generating modified fault data comprises compressing plural instances of fault data into an aggregated origination data string plural locations of the network that have the same fault condition.

31. The computer readable medium of claim 27 wherein the computer program further comprises a module for delaying retrieval of the profile data for a predetermined time and terminating the method before retrieval of the profile data if related fault data, indicating that the fault condition has ceased, is received before the predetermined time has elapsed to thereby reduce the possibility that false-positive error messages may be generated.

32. The computer readable medium of claim 27 wherein

the related fault data and the fault data indicate that the same fault condition exists at plural locations of the network;

and

the module for generating modified fault data indicating that the same fault condition exists at plural locations of the network.

33. The computer readable medium of claim 27 wherein the network-specific profile data comprises data selected from the group consisting of:

Connections, Site Info, Device Info, Line Info and History.

34. A system for managing plural potentially faulty networks capable of transmitting to the system fault signals having origination data and being indicative of changes in fault conditions occurring at particular locations on the networks, the system being communicatively linked to the plural networks and comprising:

a database with network-specific profile data for each network communicatively linked to the system, each network-specific profile corresponding to at least one host and at least one a port of a network;

at least one client computer communicatively linked to at least one of the networks for receiving fault signals therefrom, each client creating requests to generate new and/or updated trouble-tickets wherein each request includes origination data of the fault signals, wherein the client creates requests in response to receipt of fault signals, the client send requests to the server only if, after a predetermined period of time, the client has not received respective inverse fault signals and wherein the client computer has an operator interface for presenting information to an operator; and

a server communicatively linked to the database and linked to the client for exchanging information therebetween, wherein the server generates trouble-tickets and responds in response to receipt of client requests wherein the trouble-tickets comprise both network-specific profile data and origination data.

35. The system of claim 34 wherein the database further comprises generic profile data;

the server attempts to use the origination data to retrieve the network-specific profile data from the database; and

wherein the server generates generic trouble-tickets if the server cannot retrieve the network-specific profile data from the database.

36. The system of claim 34 wherein

responsive to receipt of a request having origination data for a first location, the server determines whether a prior trouble-ticket has previously been generated with respect to the first location;

and

responsive to a determination that the prior trouble-ticket has been generated, logging the new origination data into the prior trouble-ticket.