Vendor Server Correlates Component Changes to Identify Transmission Failures

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Solution Overview

Problem

Existing methods fail to quickly identify the cause of malfunctions attributed to silent changes in components, leading to prolonged identification times and significant disruptions in commercial services.

Innovation Solution

A transmission system with an apparatus management server that collects and visualizes history information, including the starting date of use and number of introductions for each article, allowing for swift identification of failures associated with silent changes by correlating articles with failure occurrences.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Measurement precision

If inventory information about devices is disclosed to the network carrier, then a change in component can be recognized based on difference, but there are cases where inventory information is only recognized by vendors and checking method is not disclosed, leading to silent changes that cannot be detected

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvecomponent change detection accuracyVSAvoidinventory information availability

Core Design Contradiction:

Measurement precisionVSLoss of information

Solution Approach 1:

The patent introduces a vendor server as an intermediary between the transmission apparatus and the network carrier. The vendor server collects component change information from multiple transmission apparatuses, processes it, and provides it to the network carrier. This intermediary structure allows the carrier to detect component changes without requiring direct access to vendor inventory information or checking methods, thus resolving the information availability problem while maintaining detection accuracy.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #24Intermediary (Mediator)

2Reliability

If traditional methods are used to detect silent changes, then component changes can be identified, but it takes a lot of time to find silent changes, leading to prolonged identification of failure causes and significant service disruption

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvefailure cause identification accuracyVSAvoidtime to identify failure cause

Core Design Contradiction:

ReliabilityVSLoss of time

Solution Approach 1:

The patent implements preliminary action by having the vendor server continuously collect and process component change information from transmission apparatuses before failures occur. The system proactively monitors component changes, correlates them with failure data, and prepares analysis results in advance. When a failure occurs, the cause can be quickly identified by referencing the pre-collected component change information, significantly reducing the time to identify failure causes while maintaining high accuracy.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #10Preliminary action

Solution Approach 2:

The patent establishes a feedback mechanism where the vendor server collects component change information, analyzes it in correlation with failure data from multiple transmission apparatuses, and provides feedback to both the vendor and the network carrier. This continuous feedback loop enables the system to learn from past failures and improve failure cause identification over time, reducing both the time and improving the accuracy of failure analysis.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #23Feedback

3Measurement precision

If component change information is collected from multiple transmission apparatuses, then silent changes can be detected through correlation analysis, but the system complexity increases with multiple data collection and processing requirements

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvesilent change detection accuracyVSAvoiddata collection and processing system complexity

Core Design Contradiction:

Measurement precisionVSDevice complexity

Solution Approach 1:

The patent merges the data collection and processing functions into a centralized vendor server that handles information from multiple transmission apparatuses. Instead of each apparatus independently managing complex correlation analysis, the vendor server consolidates component change information from multiple sources, performs centralized correlation analysis with failure data, and provides unified results. This merging approach maintains high detection accuracy while reducing individual apparatus complexity and enabling scalable multi-apparatus monitoring.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #5Merging (Combining)

Data Source

PatentUS11469966B2Transmission system, device management server, fault management method, and program

Publication Date: 2022.10.11 NIPPON TELEGRAPH & TELEPHONE CORP

AI summary

[Problem] A transmission system, an apparatus management server, a failure management method, and a program enabling the cause of a failure associated with a silent change of an article to be swiftly identified are provided.[Solution] An apparatus management server 100 of a transmission system includes a collection unit configured to collect history information on an introduction instance of articles to an optical transmission apparatus 10 and an information analysis unit 130 configured to visualize and display, based on the history information collected, a graph in which a starting date of use for each of the articles is associated with the number of introductions of the article.