Patent ID: 8804492

Claim:
A method in a network management node for handling an alarm caused by an associated fault in a communications system, the communications system comprising the network management node, a plurality of network elements, and a policy repository accessible by the network management node, the method comprising: receiving from a first network element within the communications system, the alarm caused by the associated fault in the communications system, the alarm including an identity of the first network element and an alarm time indicating when the alarm was active; determining which users and sessions are being affected by the fault associated with the alarm by performing the following: sending a request to a user activity database, wherein the user activity database comprises user session records and is accessible by the network management node, each user session record including a user identity, a record time period during which an associated user session took place, and an identity of each network element involved in the associated user session, the request requesting one or more matching records, where each of the matching records includes a network element identity equal to the identity of the first network element associated with the alarm, and a record time period for an associated user session that includes the alarm time indicating when the alarm was active; and receiving one or more matching records from the user activity database, wherein the one or more matching user session records identify the users and user sessions being affected by the fault; sending a request to the policy repository, requesting information about user policies associated with each user affected by the fault; receiving the requested user policy information from the policy repository; establishing a priority of the alarm; and handling the alarm based on the one or more matching user session records and the user policy information associated with each user affected by the fault.