Data processing: database and file management or data structures – Database design – Data structure types
Reexamination Certificate
1998-03-18
2001-08-07
Alam, Hosain T. (Department: 2172)
Data processing: database and file management or data structures
Database design
Data structure types
C709S220000, C709S224000, C714S002000, C714S025000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06272494
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
(1) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus and method for supporting actual effect information determination, and a machine readable recording medium with an actual effect information determination supporting program recorded therein, all of which are suitable for use in a multiplexer having the function of multiplexing communication lines, and the redundancy function.
(2) Description of the Related Art
In type I carriers, type II carriers, electric-power companies, Japan Highway Public Corporation, Ministry of Construction, and other public institutions, individual wide area networks are generally operated by a transit network with a hierarchical configuration including a plurality of units having the function of multiplexing communication lines and the redundancy function. The transmission units in the transit network respectively offer communication services through a plurality of routes.
In such a business offering the communication service, the service may temporarily be stopped due to switching between the networks, or a problem on the network in order to, for example, enhance or maintain the network, or make preparations (tests) for inauguration of the service. Hence, it is important to provide a communication service to obtain information about the presence or absence of a line out of service, or information about the instantaneous service outage, thereby taking an appropriate action on a position at which a failure occurs, or providing necessary information to users.
In general, when the service is stopped, information detected in the transmission units is summarized, and the summarized information is used to detect the most significant path, the most significant unit, and the most significant hierarchy in each of the transmission units. Thus, it is possible to provide network capability outage information by retrieving from a database communication lines passing through paths, the units, and hierarchies. The database previously holds interconnections of the units configuring the network, a multiplexing structure, and interconnections of the hierarchies.
However, there is a problem in that, in the network providing the communication services as described above, it is impossible to create information to be stored in the database unless an operator is perfectly familiar with a multiplexing mechanism for the transmission units configuring the network, redundancy, a network configuration, and so forth.
Further, there is another problem in that appropriate information can not be provided due to a lack of information stored in the database, or inconsistency between information in the time-varying network configuration and the contents of the database. In addition, a further problem is that the database must be reorganized (updated) in order to realize real-time processing at a high speed, and several days may be required from storage processing for the database to inauguration of the database.
Besides, when switching of database is made according to, for example, a variation in redundancy mechanism of the transmission unit, or an alternative routing unit, database switching information is retrieved after the database is adapted to unit switching information or route switching information. Hence, as the database becomes larger, a longer time is required for an operation to follow the varying network configuration and retrieval, resulting in delayed provision of the information, and delayed actions on problems.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
In view of the foregoing problems, it is an object of the present invention to provide an apparatus and method for supporting actual effect information determination, and a machine readable recording medium with an actual effect information determination supporting program recorded therein, in which a plurality of means are combined to determine actual effect information actually related to occurring cause information at a high speed.
According to the present invention, for achieving the above-mentioned objects, there is provided an apparatus for supporting actual effect information determination including an information input portion to take as inputs cause information and effect information collected in relation to components of a network having a multiple hierarchical configuration, a storage portion to previously contain hierarchical data for mutually correlating the components of the network having the multiple hierarchical configuration such that a cause component causing the cause information exerts an effect on only a component positioned in a hierarchy identical with or lower than that of the cause component, and a processing portion to retrieve the hierarchical data from the storage portion depending upon the cause information input into the information input portion, thereby using the retrieved hierarchical data to extract the effect information input into the information input portion so as to determine actual effect information actually related to the cause information.
Consequently, according to the apparatus for supporting actual effect information determination of the present invention, the actual effect information actually related to the cause information is determined by the input cause information and the input effect information depending upon the hierarchical data for mutually correlating the components of the network having the multiple hierarchical configuration. It is thereby possible to rapidly grasp a status of the network operated according to the complex and sophisticated autonomic control function, resulting in an advantage of enhanced performance of the unit.
According to the present invention, there is provided an apparatus for supporting actual effect information determination in which a preprocessing portion preprocesses the cause information and the effect information input into the information input portion, and the processing portion retrieves the hierarchical data from the storage portion depending upon the cause information preprocessed in the preprocessing portion, thereby using the retrieved hierarchical data to extract the effect information preprocessed in the preprocessing portion so as to determine the actual effect information.
Consequently, according to the apparatus for supporting actual effect information determination of the present invention, since the preprocessing is made to the input cause information and the input effect information, it is possible to reduce the number of cause information and the number of effect information serving as a candidate for the decision processing. It is possible to reduce the number of times the cause information is repeatedly correlated with the actual effect information, resulting in an advantage of an enhanced processing speed of the unit.
According to the present invention, there is provided an apparatus for supporting actual effect information determination in which the preprocessing portion includes a forced recovery information storage portion to contain forced recovery information defined as information in relation to a component exerting no effect on the network even when the cause information occurs, and a first filter portion to remove the forced recovery information stored in the forced recovery information storage portion from among the cause information and the effect information input into the information input portion.
Consequently, according to the apparatus for supporting actual effect information determination of the present invention, the forced recovery processing is made to the information about the component having no effect on the network even when the cause information occurs among the input cause information and the input effect information. It is possible to provide an additional station for the network without retrying storage of hierarchical data, and reduce the number of actual effect information serving as a candidate for decision processing by previously removing the cause information detected during operations related to the transmission unit and other positions.
Accordi
Alam Hosain T.
Fujtisu Limited
Helfgott & Karas P.C.
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