Patent ID: 8503314

Claim:
A method for monitoring a communications network, the method comprising operations for: gathering, by a computer, information regarding circuits within the communications network; receiving, by the computer, diversity rules for the circuits, the diversity rules indicating desired diversity statuses of the circuits within the communications network; analyzing, by the computer, the information regarding the circuits to identify violations of the diversity rules; receiving, by the computer, a work order comprising a list of proposed modifications to the communications network; analyzing, by the computer, the work order to identify violations further violations of the diversity rules that would occur if the list of proposed modifications to the communications network were implemented; generating, by the computer, a diversity report comprising the violations of the diversity rules, the diversity report further comprising an indication of the further violations of the diversity rules that would occur if the list of proposed modifications to the communications network were implemented; receiving, by the computer, an exclusion list specifying known violations that are to be marked within the diversity report as exclusions to be ignored, wherein the exclusion list comprises expiration dates and times for each of the exclusions in order to prevent the exclusions from being permanently ignored; matching a known violation from the exclusion list to a violation of the diversity rules from the diversity report, wherein the violation of the diversity rules from the diversity report matching the known violation comprises a false positive identification that can be ignored for purposes of applying results from the diversity report to the communications network to improve diversity of the communications network; marking, by the computer in the diversity report, the violation of the diversity rules that matches the known violation from the exclusion list as an exclusion; and causing, by the computer, the results from the diversity report to be applied to the communications network to improve the diversity of the communications network.