Method and system for displaying status indications from communications network

• US 7,259,666 B1
• Filed: 04/28/2005
• Issued: 08/21/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 04/30/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: T-Mobile Innovations LLC (Deutsche Telekom AG)
• Original Assignee: Sprint Communications Company LP (Deutsche Telekom AG)
• Inventors: Hermsmeyer, Jonathan William, Wiles, Gary Scott, Halikhedkar, Abhijith
• Primary Examiner(s): Lee; Benjamin C.
• Assistant Examiner(s): Mehmood; Jennifer
• Application Number:
  US11/116,739
• Time in Patent Office: 845 Days
• Field of Search: 340517-525, 3404261-42623, 340541-567, 340/691.6, 340/691.1, 340/5.32, 340 751- 763, 340/825.49, 340/286.02, 714/4, 714/36, 714/47, 714/700, 714/701, 709220-226, 379 8808- 8803, 379 8822- 8828
• US Class Current: 340/517
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0709 in a distributed system consisting of a plurality of standalone computer nodes, e.g. clusters, client-server systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0775 Content or structure details of the error report, e.g. specific table structure, specific error fields
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0781 Error filtering or prioritizing based on a policy defined by the user or on a policy defined by a hardware/software module, e.g. according to a severity level
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/064 involving time analysis
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0817 by checking functioning

Abstract

A method and system for displaying status indications from a communications network is provided. Alert identifiers are provided that identify a communications-network alert to be presented to a user on a display device. A set of presentation attributes desired to be displayed with the alert are provided, and a plurality of data structures from which the presentation attributes can be gathered is identified. The presentation attributes are retrieved from the plurality of data structures, and inputted into a single presentation data structure, which can be the sole object of a data query used to retrieve information to be presented in connection with the communications-network alert.

Claims

1. A method of preparing an alert for display within a communications network, the method comprising:

providing an alert identifier that identifies an alert indicating a status of a communications-network component to be presented to a user on a display device;

providing a set of presentation attributes desired to be displayed with the alert;

identifying a plurality of data structures from which the presentation attributes gatherable;

retrieving the presentation attributes from the plurality of data structures and;

inputting the presentation attributes into a single presentation data structure that stores a timestamp associated with the set of presentation attributes, wherein said single presentation data structure alone is sufficient to satisfy a query that requests information to be presented in connection with an event identifier.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the alert indicates a status of a subcomponent of said communications-network component.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the set of presentation attributes comprises one or more of the following:

a priority level;

a resources identifier;

a location identifier;

a description; and

/or

a trouble-ticket indication.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein identifying the plurality of data structures includes providing a table that includes a set of table names identifying the plurality of data structures.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein retrieving the presentation attributes from the plurality of data structures includes iteratively querying each of the data structures based on the alert identifier.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the presentation data structure is a database table.

7. The method of claim 6, further comprising querying only the database table to retrieve the information to be presented in connection with the event identifier.

8. One or more computer-readable media having computer-useable instructions embodied thereon for performing the method of claim 1.

9. One or more computer-readable media having computer-executable instructions embodied thereon for performing a method of filtering network alerts to be displayed, the method comprising:

polling a first data structure to determine whether a first parameter has changed, wherein the first parameter corresponds to an attribute related to an alarm event of a communications network;

incident to observing a change in the first parameter;

retrieving an event identifier associated with the alarm event and retrieving a first timestamp associated with the alarm event;

querying a second data structure in search of a record having the event identifier, wherein the second data structure stores display attributes that are to be displayed in connection with the event identifier and stores a second timestamp that is associated with the record;

comparing the first timestamp to the second timestamp; and

if the first timestamp is more current, then presenting the one or more attributes related to the alarm event.

10. The media of claim 9, wherein polling the first data structure includes periodically referencing the first data structure without user intervention.

11. The media of claim 10, wherein the first timestamp corresponds to a time of when the first parameter changed.

12. The media of claim 11, wherein the display attributes that are to be displayed include one or more of the following:

a priority level;

a resources identifier;

a location identifier;

a description; and

/or

a trouble-ticket indication.

13. The media of claim 12, wherein the second timestamp corresponds to a time of a currently displayed alarm event.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein comparing the first timestamp to the second timestamp includes determining whether the first timestamp is more current than the second timestamp.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein presenting the one or more attributes includes depicting the attributes on a display device or in an audio format.

16. A method of preparing an alarm for display in a communications network, the method comprising:

providing an alarm event that is associated with a plurality of event attributes related to the alarm, wherein the event attributes are stored in a first data structure;

receiving an indication of a desired change in one or more designated event attributes;

building an attribute-change-notification message;

implementing the desired attribute change;

determining whether the implementation of the attribute change affected a plurality of alert events and which alert events should be displayed based on said attribute change; and

if a new alert event should be displayed, then displaying the new alert event.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein the event attributes include one or more of the following:

an event identifier;

an event type;

an alert count;

a status indication;

a priority number;

a first-occurrence time;

a last-occurrence time;

a last-update time;

a display time;

a wake time;

a service-affecting indication;

and event description; and

/or

a user identifier.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein receiving the indication of the desired change, includes:

receiving the indication from a user;

or

monitoring the first data structure for the modification of one or more designated attributes.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein the one or more designated event attributes, includes:

the service-affecting indication;

a priority number; and

/or

the status indication.

20. The method of claim 19, wherein building an attribute-change-notification message includes identifying a set of parameters used to implement the desired attribute change.

21. The method of claim 20, wherein building the attribute-change-notification message includes grouping together for communication the event identifier, user identifier, an action type, and the set of parameters.

22. The method of claim 21, wherein the set of parameters includes one or more of the following:

a desired priority number;

a desired service-affecting indication; and

a desired state, wherein the desired state may be at least “

open”

or “

closed.”

23. The method of claim 22, wherein determining whether the implementation of the attribute change affected which of a plurality alert events should be a displayed, comprises:

ranking a set of alerts according to priority number; and

selecting the alert of greatest priority.

24. One or more computer-readable media having computer-executable instructions embodied thereon for performing the method of claim 16.