System and method of telecommunication network infrastructure alarms queuing and multi-threading

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9922539-B1
Application number	US-201615230335-A
Country	US
Kind code	B1
Filing date	Aug 5, 2016
Priority date	Aug 5, 2016
Publication date	Mar 20, 2018
Grant date	Mar 20, 2018

Abstract

A telecommunications network infrastructure alarms processing system. The system comprises a processor, a non-transitory memory, an alarm collection application and an alarm processing application stored in the non-transitory memory. The alarm collection application pulls alarms from a data store and stores each alarm on a process pending queue. The alarm processing application takes alarms from the process pending queue, determines an identity of network equipment inventory corresponding to each alarm, determines an alarm signature of each alarm, builds enriched alarms comprising corresponding alarm signatures and a management identity of network equipment inventory, places the enriched alarms on a network operations center (NOC) queue, and launches alarm transmission threads for each different cell site, where threads retrieve enriched alarms from the NOC queue and sends enriched alarms to a network operations center (NOC) tool in time order by cell site.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A telecommunications network infrastructure alarms processing system, comprising:
a processor;
a telecommunications network equipment inventory data store on a server computer;
a non-transitory memory;
an alarm collection application stored in the non-transitory memory that, when executed by the processor,
pulls, on periodic basis, a plurality of alarms from a source alarm data store on a server computer, wherein each of the plurality of alarms comprise a failed state of a piece of equipment or an underperformance of a piece of equipment, and
stores each alarm of the plurality of alarms pulled from the source alarm data store on a process pending queue; and

an alarm processing application stored in the non-transitory memory that, when executed by the processor,
takes the plurality of alarms from the process pending queue,
determines a fault key for each alarm of the plurality of alarms, wherein the fault key is a digest of an identity of an equipment item that experiences a corresponding alarm,
determines a unique alarm key corresponding to each alarm of the plurality of alarms, wherein the unique alarm key comprises an identity of a server computer associated with the source alarm data store, a serial number associated with the alarm associated with the unique alarm key, and a date-time stamp of the alarm associated with unique alarm key,
determines an alarm signature corresponding to each alarm of the plurality of alarms, wherein the alarm signature identifies a vendor of an equipment item associated with the alarm, an equipment item associated with the alarm, and an alarm condition, and wherein the vendor provided the equipment item,
accesses and reads a management identity of the item of network equipment inventory corresponding to each alarm of the plurality of alarms from the telecommunications network equipment inventory data store based on the fault key of the corresponding alarm,
builds a plurality of enriched alarms corresponding to at least some of the plurality of alarms, wherein each of the plurality of enriched alarms comprises the unique alarm key corresponding to an associated alarm, the alarm signature corresponding to the associated alarm, and the management identity corresponding to the associated alarm,
places the plurality of enriched alarms on a network operations center (NOC) queue,
launches a plurality of enriched alarm transmission threads for each of a plurality of different cell sites based on network equipment inventory identity, wherein the plurality of enriched alarm transmission threads retrieve the plurality of enriched alarms from the NOC queue and send the plurality of enriched alarms to a network operations center (NOC) tool in time order by cell site, wherein the NOC tool is executed on a separate computer system.

2. The system of claim 1 , wherein the periodic interval is about 1 minute.

3. The system of claim 1 , wherein the date-time stamp of the alarm used in the unique alarm key is a first occurrence of the alarm date-time stamp.

4. The system of claim 1 , wherein the alarm processing application delays sending some of the plurality of enriched alarms for the some of the plurality of enriched alarms to perform enriched alarm aging processing.

5. The system of claim 4 , wherein the enriched alarm aging processing comprises allowing a predefined period of time pass between a date-time stamp associated with a new alarm before sending an associated enriched alarm.

6. The system of claim 5 , wherein the predefined period of time is configured based on statistical analysis of alarms of the same alarm signature that determine a probability of an alarm clear event occurring within the predefined period of time after the date-time stamp of the new alarm.

7. The system of claim 1 , wherein the alarm processing application filters some alarms of the plurality of alarms taken from the process pending queue and does not send an associated enriched alarm associated with the filtered alarms.

8. A telecommunications network infrastructure alarms processing system, comprising:
a processor;
a telecommunications network equipment inventory data store on a server computer;
a non-transitory memory;
an alarm collection application stored in the non-transitory memory that, when executed by the processor,
pulls, on a periodic basis, a plurality of alarms from a source alarm data store on a server computer, wherein each of the plurality of alarms comprise a failed state of a piece of equipment or an underperformance of a piece of equipment, and
stores each alarm of the plurality of alarms pulled from the source alarm data store on a process pending queue; and

an alarm processing application stored in the non-transitory memory that, when executed by the processor,
takes the plurality of alarms from the process pending queue,
determines an identity of an item of network equipment corresponding to each alarm of the plurality of alarms,
determines a fault key corresponding to each alarm of the plurality of alarms based on the identity of the network equipment item identified in a corresponding alarm,
determines a unique alarm key corresponding to each alarm of the plurality of alarms, wherein the unique alarm key comprises an identity of a server computer associated with the source alarm data store, a serial number associated with the alarm associated with the unique alarm key, and a date-time stamp of the alarm associated with unique alarm key,
determines an alarm signature corresponding to each alarm of the plurality of alarms, wherein the alarm signature identifies a vendor of an equipment item associated with the alarm, an equipment item associated with the alarm, and an alarm condition, and wherein the vendor provided the equipment item,
looks up a management identity of the item of network equipment corresponding to each alarm of the plurality of alarms based on referencing the telecommunications network equipment inventory data store using the fault key of the corresponding alarm,
builds a plurality of enriched alarms corresponding to at least some of the plurality of alarms, wherein the plurality of enriched alarms comprises corresponding unique alarm keys, corresponding alarm signatures, and corresponding management identities,
creates a plurality of consolidated enriched alarms, wherein each consolidated enriched alarm of the plurality of consolidated enriched alarms is created from a plurality of related enriched alarms,
places the plurality of consolidated enriched alarms and at least some of the plurality of enriched alarms on a network operations center (NOC) queue, and
launches a plurality of enriched alarm transmission threads for each of a plurality of different cell sites based on network equipment inventory identity, wherein the plurality of enriched alarm transmission threads retrieve the plurality of consolidated enriched alarms and the at least some of the plurality of enriched alarms and sends the plurality of consolidated enriched alarms and the at least some of the plurality of enriched alarms to a network operations center (NOC) tool in time order by cell site, wherein the NOC tool is executed on a separate computer system.

9. The system of claim 8 , wherein each of the plurality of consolidated enriched alarms combines information from at least two different alarms of the plurality of alarms retrieved from the source alarm data store.

10. The system of claim 9 , wherein at least some of the plurality of enriched alarms comprise an informational event, and wherein a new alarm event and an associated alarm clear event are identified in the informational event.

11. The system of claim 8 , wherein the te

Assignees

• Sprint Communications Co Lp

Inventors

• Emigh Michael A
• Lushear Brian D
• Malghan Ravi N

Classifications

• G08B25/10 Primary

  using wireless transmission systems {(G08B25/009 takes precedence)} · CPC title

• H04L41/064 Primary

  involving time analysis · CPC title

• H04L41/0686

  Additional information in the notification, e.g. enhancement of specific meta-data · CPC title

• G05B23/0205

  by means of a monitoring system capable of detecting and responding to faults · CPC title

• H04L41/0604

  using filtering, e.g. reduction of information by using priority, element types, position or time · CPC title