Multiplex communications – Diagnostic testing
Reexamination Certificate
1999-09-13
2003-12-16
Nguyen, Steven (Department: 2665)
Multiplex communications
Diagnostic testing
C370S448000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06665267
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a monitoring control system and, more particularly, to a monitoring control system in an optical transmission system.
Recently, an expansion of a wide-band ISDN based on the globally unified user network interface has been requested, and the Synchronous Digital Hierarchy (SDH) capable of uniformly multiplying the various high-speed services and the existing low-speed services has been standardized. In this trend, various type of the communications apparatuses in accordance with the SDH system are developed, and large-capacity optical submarine cables are laid among the countries to mutually connect the SDH communications apparatuses provided in the respective countries.
The SDH is based on the communications using the optical fibers, and its large capacity allows transmission and reception of various control information items to be provided among the communications apparatuses. Taking advantage of this characteristic, the network connecting the communications apparatuses of the various countries to one another in the shape of a ring is constructed and provided in actual use, from the viewpoint of the resistance to the failure and the simple maintenance.
In such an international ring network system, the communications carriers of the various countries cooperate to operate the network. That is, each of the communications carriers has at least one monitor and control apparatus, and uses this to monitor the communications apparatus in the network and the network itself and execute various setting.
However, the international ring network system has a specific problem and the following one has been pointed. That is, in the above-mentioned system, the access of the monitor and control apparatuses to the communications apparatuses has not been limited to allow the communications carriers to cooperate the network. In other words, access of the monitor and control apparatus of any company to the communications apparatuses of the other companies has been unlimitedly permitted.
Furthermore, the monitor and control apparatuses have the same function for all the communications apparatuses that are to be monitored and controlled. That is, since the monitoring and controlling function for the communications apparatus in a station A (in country A) is not different from that for the communications apparatus in a station B (in country B), access to all the functions of each communications apparatus can be made.
However, each communications carrier wants to prevent some of specifically operated functions (such as an alarm generation function) in its communications apparatus from being accessed by the monitor and control apparatuses of the other countries. For this reason, it is necessary to limit the access in some manners, but the system meeting such a request has not yet been known.
In addition, in the conventional monitor and control terminal in the optical communications system, when failure is monitored, a summary screen of each optical transmission station apparatus (hereinafter called a monitored apparatus) is formed on the basis of the predetermined apparatus configuration and displayed.
In such a monitor and control terminal if the apparatus configurations of the monitored apparatuses in respective stations are different, the configuration information needs to be changed in accordance with each of monitored apparatuses to be connected, in each monitor and control terminal. Since the apparatus configurations are different in the stations, the configuration information that is set in the monitor and control terminal has to be managed in every station.
In the optical transmission system, the history of operations and the history of recovery of error generation in each monitored apparatus, the history of operations in the monitor and control apparatus, and the like are displayed on the screen as the character data items and stored inside. When some apparatus failures occur in the system or apparatuses, the stored character data items are used for diagnosis of the cause.
Further, the monitor and control terminal for monitoring and controlling the monitored apparatus by using the multi-window system, has a mounting drawing of the sub-rack level about the type of boards mounted in each of the sub-racks constituting the monitored apparatus and the order in mounting of the boards in the sub-rack, as the screen information. When the monitored apparatus informs the monitor and control terminal of the apparatus failure, the monitor and control terminal automatically opens the window which displays the mounting drawing of the sub-rack level including the board where the failure has occurred, and allows the display of the failure board to be blinked on the mounting drawing of the sub-rack level or allows its display colors to be changed so as to make the point of the failure visually understood. When a plurality of apparatus failures occur, the windows displaying a plurality of the mounting drawings of the sub-rack level are opened on the screen in the number necessary for display of the failures and the points of the failures are displayed in the window by using the mounting drawing of each sub-rack.
As mentioned above, the conventional monitor and control system has the problem that when the apparatus configurations of the monitored apparatuses are different in stations, the generated configuration information is changed and managed for every station in the monitor and control terminal to be connected to each monitored apparatus, therefore, the development of the monitor and control terminal takes a great deal of time. It also has a drawback that once the configuration information is determined, the monitor and control terminal cannot connect to the monitored apparatus which has the different apparatus configuration.
In the conventional monitor and control system, the history of operations and the history of recovery of error generation in each monitored apparatus, the history of operations in the monitor and control apparatus, and the like are displayed as the character data items on the screen, other than a screen displaying the latest state. Therefore, the operator need to read the data while tracing back the character data items listed in the order of time. Further, it is difficult to immediately obtain the information about whether any changes in condition have happened to the apparatus or not while the operator is absent, what they were if they have happened and at what timing they have happened and transferred to the present condition.
When the conventional monitor and control system reads the generated condition of a plurality of failures that generate almost simultaneously at each monitored apparatus and that have different severities on different sub-racks, a window displaying the failure having a low severity may be displayed on a window displaying the failure having a high severity since the monitor and control terminal displays the windows in the order of the reading process, and thus, the operator cannot easily understand that a failure having a higher severity has occurred. In addition, in a case where a plurality of failures having different severities have happened almost simultaneously at the different sub-racks, if the monitored apparatus first informs a failure which has happened at a certain subrack with a high severity and then a failure which has happened at a different sub-rack with a lower severity, the monitor and control terminal first displays the window having a higher severity which it has first received and then displays the window having a lower severity which it has received secondly on the displayed window having a higher severity, and thus, the operator cannot easily understand the occurrence of the failure having a higher severity.
BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention is accomplished in consideration of the above circumstances, and its object is to provide an access management method capable of limiting access of a monitor and control apparatus to a communications apparatus, and the comm
Iwasaki Hidetoshi
Nagano Masaaki
Yamamoto Youko
Finnegan Henderson Farabow Garrett & Dunner L.L.P.
Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba
Nguyen Phuongchau Ba
Nguyen Steven
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