Patent ID: 7386787

Claim:
A method of alarm management in a communication network equipped with a network management system for monitoring operation of network equipment, the method comprising the steps of: a) generating at a network element a compliant alarm report in response to an alarm condition, said report including an alarm token encapsulated between a corresponding pair of extensible markup language tags; b) logging said compliant alarm report into a combined alarm report log file, adapted to log compliant alarm reports from a plurality of network elements of said communication network; c) parsing said compliant alarm report using a compliant parser equipped with extensible markup language tag specifications, including performing a look-up query based on an alarm code received in said alarm report for retrieving extensible markup language tags in respect of alarm tokens corresponding to said alarm code; d) at said network management system, identifying a network management function pertinent to said alarm condition based on a specified group of extensible markup language identified in said combined log file; and e) triggering exection of said network management function, wherein the pair of extensible markup language tags uniquely identify a category of said alarm condition being reported by said network element, and wherein said network management function is executed concurrently and independent of operation of other network management functions of said network management system.