Communication system management apparatus, methods, and interfaces

• US 20070185874A1
• Filed: 02/06/2006
• Published: 08/09/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 02/06/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: RPX Corporation
• Original Assignee: Alcatel-Lucent SA (Nokia Corporation)
• Inventors: Craig, Robert, Kiesekamp, David, Nijemcevic, Sasa, Martineau, Terrence, Ensing, Karen, Tofinetti, Michael, Heidari, Saied, Kuruvilla, Paul, Hardwick, Frances
• Granted Patent: US 8,793,585 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0484 for the control of specific functions or operations, e.g. selecting or manipulating an object, an image or a displayed text element, setting a parameter value or selecting a range
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0893 Assignment of logical groups to network elements
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/12 Discovery or management of network topologies
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/22 comprising specially adapted graphical user interfaces [GUI]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0817 by checking functioning

Abstract

Communication system management apparatus, methods, and interfaces are disclosed. A group of objects that are associated with different types of communication system components in a representation of a communication system are configured in a group. A further representation of the objects of the group is provided, and includes an indication of component operational status for one or more communication system components respectively associated with one or more of the objects of the group. The further representation of the objects of the group may also or instead provide access to the objects of the group, so that information associated with the objects may be more easily displayed, for example. The communication system representation and the group representation are provided in a Graphical User Interface (GUI) in some embodiments.

Claims

1. An apparatus comprising:

an object group manager operable to allow configuration of a group of objects that are associated with different types of communication system components in a representation of a communication system, and to provide in a further representation of the objects of the group an indication of component operational status for one or more communication system components respectively associated with one or more of the objects of the group; and

an object monitor operatively coupled to the object group manager and operable to determine the component operational status for the one or more communication system components respectively associated with the one or more objects, and to provide the component operational status to the object group manager.

2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein at least one of the object group manager and the object monitor is implemented in software for execution by a processor.

3. The apparatus of claim 1, further comprising:

a memory,

wherein the object group manager is further operable to store respective identifiers of the objects of the group in the memory, and wherein the object monitor is further operable to determine the one or more objects for which component operational status is to be determined by accessing the identifiers stored in the memory.

4. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the object group manager is further operable to receive user inputs for configuring the group of objects, the user inputs comprising one or more of:

an add object input to add an object to the group, and a remove object input to remove an object from the group.

5. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the object monitor is further operable to detect a change in component operational status for a communication system component associated with an object and to provide an updated component operational status for the communication system component associated with the object to the object group manager responsive to detecting a change, and wherein the object group manager is further operable to provide an indication of the updated component operational status information in the further representation.

6. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the object monitor is further operable to determine additional information for one or more of the objects of the group and to provide the additional information to the object group manager, and wherein the object group manager is further operable to provide an indication of the additional information in the further representation.

7. The apparatus of claim 6, wherein the object group manager is further operable to receive user inputs specifying types of information for which an indication is to be provided in the further representation.

8. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the representation comprises a representation of information stored in a database, and wherein the object monitor is operable to access the database to determine the component operational status for the communication system components respectively associated with the one or more objects.

9. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the representation and the further representation comprise a Graphical User Interface (GUI).

10. The apparatus of claim 9, wherein the further representation comprises one or more graphical elements through which an object function for an object of the group are accessible, the object functions comprising one or more of:

a function to display all available information associated with an object, a function to configure for an object an action to be performed responsive to a particular component operational status, and one or more contextual menu functions.

11. A method comprising:

identifying objects of a group of objects that are associated with different types of communication system components in a representation of a communication system;

determining a component operational status for one or more communication system components respectively associated with one or more of the identified objects; and

displaying in a further representation of the objects of the group an indication of component operational status for the one or more communication system components respectively associated with the one or more of the identified objects.

12. The method of claim 11, further comprising:

receiving user inputs for configuring the group of objects, the user inputs comprising one or more of;

an add object input to add an object to the group, and a remove object input to remove an object from the group.

13. The method of claim 11, further comprising:

determining whether the component operational status for a communication system component associated with an object has changed; and

updating the component operational status indication for the object in the further representation where the component operational status has changed.

14. The method of claim 11, wherein displaying comprises displaying the further representation in a Graphical User Interface (GUI).

15. A machine-readable medium storing instructions which when executed perform the method of claim 11.

16. An apparatus comprising:

an object group manager operable to allow configuration of a group of objects from a graphical representation of a communication system, and to provide in a further graphical representation of the objects of the group an indication of operational status associated with one or more objects of the group, and one or more graphical elements for accessing respective objects of the group; and

an object monitor operatively coupled to the object group manager and operable to determine the operational status associated with the one or more objects, and to provide the operational status to the object group manager.

17. A Graphical User Interface (GUI) comprising a representation of a group of objects that would be associated with different types of communication system components in a representation of a communication system, the group representation including an indication of a component operational status for one or more components respectively associated with one or more of the objects of the group.

18. The GUI of claim 17, wherein the group representation comprises a respective icon representing each object of the group, the icon representing an object providing access to object information associated with the object.

19. The GUI of claim 18, wherein a color of an icon representing an object comprises the indication of component operational status for the component associated with the object.

20. A machine-readable medium storing a data structure, the data structure comprising:

a plurality of object identifiers identifying objects associated with different types of communication system components in a representation of a communication system;

an indication that the objects identified by the plurality of object identifiers comprise a group of objects; and

an indication that operational status information for one or more components respectively associated with one or more of the objects of the group is to be included in a representation of the group of objects.