Patent ID: 7197558

Claim:
A system for network element fault information processing, the system comprising: a network management server; an interior network element, coupled to the network management server; an edge switch coupled to the interior network element, the interior network element located within a network, wherein the edge switch is a first point of access to the network for communication by a customer; a trap log resident in the edge switch, wherein the trap log sends an alarm to the network management server via the interior network element to alert for specified network events; a first communications link coupled to the interior network element, the first communications link to carry communications to and from a customer via the edge switch; and a computer, the computer coupled to the network management server, the computer including a processor and a memory, the memory storing a plurality of instructions to be executed by the processor, the plurality of instructions including instructions to receive a network element identifier from a user, the network element identifier corresponding to the network element, wherein the network element is a switch, the switch coupled to the network management server, the network management server including network element fault information, and wherein the communications link includes one or more communications circuits; receive a network element fault information processing instruction; receive the network element fault information from at least the alarms from the trap log; process the network element fault information for display to the user based at least in part on the received network element fault information processing instruction, wherein the instructions to process the network element fault information include instructions to summarize the identified network element fault information corresponding to a plurality of network element faults, the plurality of network element faults comprising transitions to down state, transitions to up state, frame errors and remainder network faults; store the network element fault information into a network fault file wherein the network element fault file contains network element fault information collected over a rolling time period, wherein the rolling time period comprises a previous finite time period wherein the previous finite time period is selected from the group consisting of a plurality of hours, a plurality of days, a week, and a month; and display in tabular form the identified network element fault information corresponding to the plurality of network element faults over the previous finite time period.