Patent ID: 8166351

Claim:
A method of filtering fault events generated in a network environment, comprising: collecting event history data over a period of time, the event history data comprising a record of each fault event generated by a device in the network environment during the period of time; dividing the event history data into discrete timeframes of a specified duration, wherein fault events occurring in each timeframe are considered to have occurred substantially simultaneously; determining which fault events occurred in each discrete timeframe; constructing a simultaneous event matrix representing a count of discrete timeframes within which a first event and a second event occur substantially simultaneously for each distinct pair of fault events from the event history data; for each distinct pair of fault events, computing a conditional probability of the second event of the pair occurring given that the first event of the pair has occurred from the simultaneous event matrix; identifying a second event having the conditional probability exceeding a threshold probability as a redundant fault event; and removing the redundant fault event from an event stream generated by the device in the network environment.