Alarm Management System for Telecommunications Network Routing
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Solution Overview
Problem
Managing complex communications networks is challenging due to vendor diversity, geographic disparities, and disparate equipment roles, leading to difficulties in interpreting and addressing alarms, which often require manual, labor-intensive processes and rely heavily on human expertise, resulting in resource wastage and prolonged problem resolution.
Innovation Solution
A system and method that utilize behavior rules to route alarms, incorporating deduplication, thresholding, pattern recognition, and root cause analysis to enrich and manage alarm messages from disparate vendors, enabling automated processing and display of critical alerts, thereby reducing the burden on human operators.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If manual alarm management processes are used, then human expertise can interpret alarms, but resource wastage and prolonged problem resolution occur
Solution Approach 1:
An automated alarm management system acts as an intermediary between network devices and human operators. The system receives alarms from multiple vendors, standardizes them into a common format, performs root cause analysis, and presents processed information to operators. This intermediary layer eliminates manual interpretation while maintaining accuracy through automated analysis algorithms.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent replaces manual mechanical processes (human operators physically analyzing and routing alarms) with automated electronic systems. The system automatically performs alarm standardization, root cause analysis, and routing decisions that previously required human expertise, thereby increasing problem resolution speed while maintaining or improving accuracy through consistent automated analysis.
2Ease of operation
If alarms from multiple vendors are standardized, then interpretation becomes easier, but processing complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system changes the parameter format of alarms from vendor-specific formats to a standardized common format. By transforming alarm parameters into a universal structure with consistent fields and semantics, the system makes alarms from different vendors interpretable through a single interface while managing complexity through automated transformation rules.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent creates a universal alarm standard that can handle alarms from multiple different vendors through a single common format. This universal approach allows one standardized structure to serve multiple functions: receiving Nortel alarms, Cisco alarms, and other vendor alarms all through the same interface, thereby easing operation while consolidating complexity into a single standardization engine.
3Loss of information
If all alarms are displayed to operators, then complete information is provided, but information overload occurs
Solution Approach 1:
The system extracts and displays only the most critical alarm information after performing automated root cause analysis. By separating essential information from redundant details and presenting only what is necessary for effective response, the system maintains information completeness for critical issues while eliminating operator overload from redundant or resolved alarm data.
Solution Approach 2:
The system performs preliminary root cause analysis and alarm prioritization before presenting information to operators. By pre-processing alarms to identify root causes and prioritize critical issues, the system prepares information in advance so operators receive pre-analyzed, prioritized data rather than raw alarm streams, thereby maintaining completeness while reducing operational burden.
Data Source
AI summary
A system, method, and medium for routing alarms based within a telecommunications network is provided. Status indications (such as alarms or element problem notifications) are received and a determination is made as to whether the status indication has been processed. If it has not be processed, then a data field state is evaluated to determine a routing behavior rule. If the status indication is an updated occurrence (not new), then a corresponding prior event is identified within a data structure, notified, and the second occurrence is routed to one or more data engines.