Abstract:
A method of providing an ongoing indication of at least one piece of current status information about a network element through the use of status indicators in the command line prompt displayed on a command line interface display monitor. Optionally, the pop-up messages to the command line interface display monitor can be modified to provide an indicator of network element status. This abstract is provided as a tool for those searching for patents, and not as a limitation on the scope of the claims.

Description:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION 
   This invention relates to the monitoring of network elements in a communications network. 
   BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
   Operation of a CLI 
   As illustrated in  FIG. 1 , network elements typically have a text-only command line interface (CLI) that may be used for configuration and monitoring. A CLI shows the operator a prompt  100 , and the operator may enter commands to cause the network element to perform various actions. 
   A typical CLI command  104  and response  108  is shown in  FIG. 2 . For example, the operator may type commands into the CLI to cause it to display alarm and status information. 
   The CLI is displayed in a window of fixed dimensions. Typically, as new text is displayed older commands and other displayed information move up the screen until they scroll of the top. (The invention described below is agnostic on the direction of scroll and would work fine for a system that adds new text to the top of the screen and scrolls older text off the bottom of the screen). 
     FIG. 3  shows the status of the screen previously shown in  FIG. 2  after an operator hit the return key (at  112 ). Hitting enter caused the system to display a new command line prompt. When this prompt was added, the  FIG. 2  prompt  100  and operator-entered command  104  has scrolled off the top of the display in  FIG. 3 . 
   Indication of Status 
   As shown in  FIG. 2 , the operator may enter a command  104  (e.g. “fault show”) and see in response a summary of the current faults. However, the operator does not have an indication that there is a fault until the appropriate command is entered. Since the operator is usually monitoring a great number of network elements, it is not practical for the operator to iteratively poll each of the network elements to see if a fault exists. 
   As illustrated in  FIG. 4 , some systems display a pop-up message  116  on the screen when an event of interest occurs. This pop-up message is delivered to the display screen without a request from the operator. Note that the pop-up message  116  will eventually scroll off the screen. Also, the pop-up message will be lost if no terminal was attached to the relevant network element at the time of the event. If a series of faults occur in close succession, then a series of pop-up messages will appear on the screen with the most recent pop-up messages pushing off all but the most recent pop-up messages. 
   As shown in  FIG. 5 , some monitoring systems for network elements use special escape code to move the cursor around the Cathode Ray Tube (CRT). These systems “freeze” part of the screen and use the frozen (non-scrolling) portion  130  of the screen to display status, while the rest of the screen continues to scroll and is used for the usual Command Line Interface. Thus, command prompts  100 , operator command  120 , and system response  124  will scroll in the upper section of the window. 
   In other words, in  FIG. 5 , the part of the display below the dashed line is the frozen portion  130  and does not scroll. The text “Status=OK” would be replaced by “Status=Fault” when a fault occurs. While this system is superior to systems that scroll the entire screen, the “freezing” of a portion of the screen has its own drawbacks:
         The frozen portion is not available for the display of other information   Freezing requires special escape codes that vary from display to display.   Freezing interferes with the capture of the display into a log file.   Freezing can lead to extended periods of displaying the same text in the same location, which can be detrimental to certain legacy displays.       

   Another way to quickly communicate network element status is via indicator lamps or LEDs. However, the use of indicators requires that the operator to be physically in the presence of the equipment. As described in more detail below, a system that relies on the operator to be in proximity with the network element is not useable in many applications. 
   Operational Scenarios 
   The following issues complicate the operation of network elements:
         1. A network element will typically be one of many network elements in a network.   2. The network elements are often dispersed geographically.   3. A small number of operators will normally be monitoring a large number of network elements.   4. An issue or fault with a network element will typically affect a large number of users, so it is imperative that an operator must quickly become aware of the most severe network problems in order to diagnose and resolve any faults or issues in the network.   5. An operator may not be aware that an issue has occurred, but needs to be informed in a timely fashion.   6. The notification of the operator needs to continue as a reminder of an unresolved issue until the issue is resolved.       

   Issues 1 and 2 mean that it is not practical to have a terminal attached to each network element. Rather, the TELNET protocol, IETF RFC 854, (or other suitable protocol) is used to provide a virtual connection, and the output of this connection is captured to a file for post-mortem analysis. A CLI with a frozen status area (as shown in  FIG. 5 ) is not acceptable when logging is being performed. 
   Issues 3 and 4 mean that the operator must be able to quickly focus on a given network element and determine its operational status. Any hints or shortcuts provided by the network element are invaluable in leading the network operator to the most critical faults. 
   Issue 5 refers to the fact than an operator may be using a system without knowing a system failure has occurred, and only discovers that something is amiss when a customer complains or an operation fails. Once the operator is notified of a failure, he then conducts a lengthy search through different status displays to determine the failure reason. This sequence of steps has the potential to cause extended service outages and customer dissatisfaction. 
   Thus, despite the longstanding need for such a solution, the prior art has not adequately satisfied the need to provide a quick and ongoing indication of the status of a network element to an operator monitoring the status of a network element. 
   It is therefore an object of the invention to provide a quick and intuitive indication of network element status such as whether the network element is currently experiencing a fault condition. 
   It is a further object of this invention to provide such an indication of network element status through use of a system of indications that can be implemented without knowledge of the specific terminal type for the display screen used to monitor the network element or the use of escape codes. 
   It is a further object of this invention to provide such an indication of network element status through use of a system of indications that can be implemented without interference to a system that creates a log file of the information sent to the display monitor. 
   SUMMARY 
   The current invention provides a succinct summary of one or more aspects of the current system status for a particular network element, which is always presented to the operator. As the network status indicator is repeated with each command line prompt, the scrolling of the display screen does not make the network status indication unavailable to the operator, and thus serves as an ongoing reminder of the status of this particular network element. The benefits include reduced operating expenses and improved response time to system faults. 
   These and other advantages of the present invention are apparent from the drawings and the detailed description that follows. 

   
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
       FIG. 1  shows a typical CLI prompt of the type found in the prior art. 
       FIG. 2  shows the response of a network element to an operator command in keeping with the prior art. 
       FIG. 3  shows old text scrolling off the top of a CRT in keeping with the prior art. 
       FIG. 4  shows a CLI with a pop-up message in keeping with the prior art. 
       FIG. 5  shows a CLI with a stationary status area in keeping with the prior art. 
       FIG. 6  shows one variation of the simple status indication of the current invention. 
   

   DESCRIPTION 
   The present invention will now be described more fully hereinafter with reference to the accompanying drawings, in order that preferred embodiments of the invention can be disclosed. 
   This invention may, however, be embodied in many different forms and should not be construed as limited to the embodiments set forth herein; rather, these embodiments are provided so that this disclosure will be thorough and complete, and will fully convey the scope of the invention to those skilled in the art. Like numbers refer to like elements throughout. 
   The invention indicates the status of a network element by changing the CLI prompt based on the status of the network element.  FIG. 6  shows an example. When the response  108  to command  104  was written to the screen, the network element had no detected faults. Subsequently, a fault was detected and reported through a pop-up message  118 . After the detection of a fault, the command line prompt changes. This is in contrast with the lack of change between command line prompt  100  and command line prompt  102  shown in  FIG. 2 . In this particular embodiment the command line prompt  101  includes a status prefix  134 . In the following case the status prefix  134  is a “**”. (This could also be done with a postfix or even just a change in the prompt separator character i.e. going from a “#” to a “&gt;” or some other character.) Note that the prefix does not need to be as short as shown in these examples. The prefix could be a text message that may include carriage returns or be sufficiently long to cause the display to wrap so that the command prompt takes more than one line on the display monitor. The text message could include specific identification of one or more of the most severe faults. 
   One embodiment of the present invention would simply have a binary system using a status prefix to indicate a fault and no status prefix when there are not any faults. In a preferred embodiment, further information such as the highest severity of the existing set of one or more fault conditions can also be communicated via the status prefix. For example, in a preferred embodiment, a status prefix of: “*” indicates a “minor fault”; “**” indicates a “major fault”; and a “*C” indicates a Critical fault condition. In this preferred embodiment, the status prefix  134  portion of the command line prompt  101  always displays the indication for the highest level fault condition that is currently present. For example, if both a Minor and Critical fault condition exists on the network element, then the command line prompt related to that network element will display the indicator for the presence of a Critical fault. As shown in  FIG. 6 , the likely response by the operator to the change in status prefix  134  is to enter a command  105  to get response  110  with additional details on the number and types of faults so that the operator can act to clear the fault or make other modifications to the communication network to adjust to the ongoing presence of the fault. 
   The system also works if autonomous messaging is turned off. (not shown) In this case however, the operator could enter one command without seeing the status condition, as the last command prompt visible on the screen would not necessarily show the current status of the network element (and with autonomous messaging turned off the operator would not see a pop-up message indicating the detection of a fault). After the operator hits the enter key, the next command line prompt would then show the current status for the network element through the use of a current status prefix. As it is normal for an operator to wait for the next prompt as an indication of command completion, the current status of the network element will be conveyed to the operator at the end of each “transaction” cycle (command entry and confirmation that the command was executed). 
   The present invention has been explained in the context of delivering a single piece of important status information about a network element through the use of a modified command line prompt. The command line prompt can be used to convey more than one piece of information by the use of more than one set of signals which could be concatenated together or otherwise combined. For example, a command line prompt including a character sequence of **-58-N could indicate that there is an unresolved major fault (**), the network element is loaded to 58% of capacity, and the ambient temperature of the room storing the network element is within the normal range (ambient temperature might be of interest for a device monitored by an operator at a remote location). 
   While the present invention has been explained with the context of displaying information on a single network element, this does not preclude the use of this invention for a cluster of network elements that form a larger conceptual network element. For monitoring purposes, it may be useful for an operator to monitor these aggregated network elements to quickly learn of a cluster with a serious fault. If necessary, the operator can drill down to get more specific information on the specific fault and the specific component having difficulty. Thus, for the purposes of the claims that follow, the term network element includes network elements that are aggregations of related network elements. 
   While the present invention has been explained with the use of character based indicators, one of skill in the art could implement a series of command line prompts wherein the choice of prompt conveys information about the status of a network element and do so with non-character based indicators. For example, changing the prompt to bright red for a critical fault and yellow for a less series fault would be an option. Likewise, changing the normal font to italics, underlined, and finally bold or bold and all capital letters would be another way of conveying current status information. A more subtle set of indications would be using no capital letters for one status, leading caps for a second status, and all caps or reverse caps for a more urgent status. Other command prompt appearance attributes that could be used to convey information include choice off character font set, font size, blinking/non-blinking, and background color of prompt as opposed to the foreground color used for the text. The preferred embodiment uses characters including capitalization schemes rather then the other various appearance attributes as character based cues can be implemented in a wide range of systems on a wide range of legacy displays without the use of escape characters and without complication to the logging of the command line status information. 
   Those skilled in the art will recognize that the methods and apparatus of the present invention have many applications and that the present invention is not limited to the specific examples given to promote understanding of the present invention. Moreover, the scope of the present invention covers the range of variations, modifications, and substitutes for the system components described herein, as would be known to those of skill in the art. 
   The legal limitations of the scope of the claimed invention are set forth in the claims that follow and extend to cover their legal equivalents. Those unfamiliar with the legal tests for equivalency should consult a person registered to practice before the patent authority which granted this patent such as the United States Patent and Trademark Office or its counterpart. 
   Acronyms and Abbreviations 
   
     
       
             
             
             
           
         
             
                 
                 
             
           
           
             
                 
               CLI 
               Command Line Interface 
             
             
                 
               CRT 
               Cathode Ray Tube