Outage analysis system

Abstract

A device may receiving alarms identifying failures of network elements, create a site table that includes a list of sites at which the alarms are generated and a number of alarms for each of the sites, determine whether an outage has occurred based on the alarms, analyze whether the outage is a false outage based on a failure of a probe that generates the alarms, and provide a notification that includes the site table, an indication of whether the outage has occurred, or an indication whether the outage is a false outage.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . A method comprising:
 receiving alarms identifying failures of network elements;   creating a site table that includes a list of sites at which the alarms are generated and a number of alarms for each of the sites;   determining whether an outage has occurred based on the alarms;   analyzing whether the outage is a false outage based on a failure of a probe that generates the alarms; and   providing a notification that includes the site table, an indication of whether the outage has occurred, or an indication whether the outage is a false outage.   
     
     
         2 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising:
 creating a link table that includes a list of links at which the alarms are generated and a number of alarms for each of the links.   
     
     
         3 . The method of  claim 2 , where creating the site table includes:
 dividing a circuit layout record into lines;   partitioning each of the lines into segments; and   parsing each of the segments to identify an occurrence of one of the sites within the segment.   
     
     
         4 . The method of  claim 2 , where creating the link table includes:
 counting a number of occurrences of a link in a circuit layout record.   
     
     
         5 . The method of  claim 1 , determining whether the outage has occurred includes:
 concluding that the outage has occurred when the alarms indicate unavailability of a particular number of links or a particular amount of bandwidth.   
     
     
         6 . The method of  claim 1 , determining whether the outage has occurred includes:
 updating a flag in a database to indicate that the outage has occurred when a particular amount of bandwidth is unavailable due to failures of the network elements.   
     
     
         7 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising:
 waiting for a particular amount of time after determining that the outage has occurred for additional alarms to be received.   
     
     
         8 . The method of  claim 1 , where analyzing whether the outage is a false outage includes:
 receiving alarms associated with the probe; and   determining whether the alarms associated with the probe indicates that the probe has failed.   
     
     
         9 . The method of  claim 1 , where providing the notification includes at least one of:
 updating a database that supplies information for generating a web page that displays an outage status; or   sending an email message about a status of the outage.   
     
     
         10 . The method of  claim 9 , where sending the email message includes one of:
 sending an email message about an onset of the outage; or   sending an email message about restoration of the network elements.   
     
     
         11 . The method of  claim 1 , where providing the notification includes:
 providing a web page that shows a timeline of events that are associated with the outage.   
     
     
         12 . A device comprising:
 a processor to:
 receive alarms that identify failures of network elements; 
 determine whether an outage has occurred based on the alarms; 
 create a link table that includes a list of links at which the alarms are generated and a number of alarms for each of the links; 
 determine whether the outage is a false outage based on whether an alarm-feed that generated the alarms has failed; and 
 store information regarding whether the outage has occurred. 
   
     
     
         13 . The device of  claim 12 , where the network elements include at least one of:
 a digital signal level link;   an optical carrier level link; or   a trunk level link.   
     
     
         14 . The device of  claim 12 , where the network elements include at least one of:
 a signaling system 7 (SS7) network element; or   an Internet Protocol (IP) network element.   
     
     
         15 . The device of  claim 12 , where the processor is further configured to:
 correlate information provided in circuit layout records to produce a site table that summarizes information provided by the alarms.   
     
     
         16 . The device of  claim 15 , where the site table includes:
 a list of sites at which the alarms are generated and a number of alarms generated at each of the sites.   
     
     
         17 . The device of  claim 12 , where the processor is further configured to:
 send an email message about the outage.   
     
     
         18 . The device of  claim 17 , where the email message includes:
 information about an onset of the outage; or   information about restoration of one of the network elements.   
     
     
         19 . The device of  claim 12 , where the processor is further configured to:
 receive a browser request for an operational status of the network elements;   respond with information about the operational status of the network elements when the processor receives browser requests for information about the outage.   
     
     
         20 . A computer-readable medium comprising computer-executable instructions, the computer-executable instructions comprising:
 instructions for querying a database for alarms that indicate failures of network elements;   instructions for summarizing circuit layout records as tables;   instructions for determining whether an outage has occurred based on a response from the database to the query; and   instructions for updating a status of the outage in the database and for sending email reports that include the tables.