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Table Of Contents
21.2 Alarm Counts on the LCD for a Node, Slot, or Port
21.3.1 Viewing Alarms by Time Zone
21.3.2 Controlling Alarm Display
21.3.5 Controlling the Conditions Display
21.5.1 Creating and Modifying Alarm Profiles
21.5.6 Applying Alarm Profiles
21.7 External Alarms and Controls
Alarm Management Reference
This chapter describes Cisco Transport Controller (CTC) alarm management. To troubleshoot specific alarms, refer to the Cisco ONS 15454 Troubleshooting Guide (for ANSI shelves) or the Cisco ONS 15454 SDH Troubleshooting Guide (for ETSI shelves).
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Unless otherwise specified, "ONS 15454" refers to both ANSI and ETSI shelf assemblies.
Chapter topics include:
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21.1 Overview
CTC detects and reports alarms generated by the Cisco ONS 15454 and the larger network. You can use CTC to monitor and manage alarms at the card, node, or network level. Default alarm severities conform to the Telcordia GR-253-CORE standard, but you can set alarm severities in customized alarm profiles or suppress CTC alarm reporting. For a detailed description of the standard Telcordia categories employed by Optical Networking System (ONS) nodes, refer to the Cisco ONS 15454 Troubleshooting Guide or the Cisco ONS 15454 SDH Troubleshooting Guide.
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21.2 Alarm Counts on the LCD for a Node, Slot, or Port
You can view node, slot, or port-level alarm counts and summaries using the buttons on the ONS 15454 LCD panel. The Slot and Port buttons toggle between display types; the Slot button toggles between node display and slot display, and the Port button toggles between slot and port views. Pressing the Status button after you choose the display mode changes the display from alarm count to alarm summary.
The ONS 15454 has a one-button update for some commonly viewed alarm counts. If you press the Slot button once and then wait eight seconds, the display automatically changes from a slot alarm count to a slot alarm summary. If you press the Port button to toggle to port-level display, you can use the Port button to toggle to a specific slot and to view each port's port-level alarm count. Figure 21-1 shows the LCD panel layout.
Figure 21-1 Shelf LCD Panel
21.3 Alarm Display
In the card, node, or network CTC view, click the Alarms tab to display the alarms for that card, node, or network. The Alarms window shows alarms in compliance with Telcordia GR-253-CORE. This means that if a network problem causes two alarms, such as loss of frame (LOF) and loss of signal (LOS), CTC only shows the LOS alarm in this window because it supersedes the LOF and replaces it.
The Path Width column in the Alarms and Conditions tabs expands on the alarmed object information contained in the access identifier (AID) string (such as "STS-4-1-3") by giving the number of STSs contained in the alarmed path. For example, the Path Width tells you whether a critical alarm applies to an STS1 or an STS48c. The column reports the width as a 1, 3, 6, 12, 48, etc. as appropriate, understood to be "STS-N."
Table 8-1 on page 8-6 lists the column headings and the information recorded in each column and Table 8-2 on page 8-7 provides the color codes for alarm and condition severities.
For a list of circuits with raised alarms, see the "NTP-G66 View Alarm-Affected Circuits" procedure on page 8-14.
21.3.1 Viewing Alarms by Time Zone
By default, alarms and conditions are displayed with the time stamp of the CTC workstation where you are viewing them. However, you can set the node to report alarms (and conditions) using the time zone where the node is located. See the "DLP-G118 Display Alarms and Conditions Using Time Zone" task on page 8-10 for instructions.
21.3.2 Controlling Alarm Display
You can control the display of the alarms shown on the Alarms window. Table 21-1 shows the actions you can perform in the Alarms window.
21.3.3 Filtering Alarms
The alarm display can be filtered to prevent the display of alarms with certain severities or alarms that occurred between certain dates. You can set the filtering parameters by clicking the Filter button at the bottom-left of the Alarms window. You can turn the filter on or off by clicking the Filter tool at the bottom-right of the window. CTC retains your filter activation setting. For example, if you turn the filter on and then log out, CTC keeps the filter active the next time you log in.
See the "NTP-G69 Enable, Modify, or Disable Alarm Severity Filtering" procedure on page 8-24.
21.3.4 Conditions Tab
The Conditions window displays retrieved fault conditions. A condition is a fault or status detected by ONS 15454 hardware or software. When a condition occurs and continues for a minimum period, CTC raises a condition, which is a flag showing that this particular condition currently exists on the ONS 15454. See the "DLP-G120 View Conditions" task on page 8-11.
The Conditions window shows all conditions that occur, including those that are superseded. For instance, if a network problem causes two alarms, such as LOF and LOS, CTC shows both the LOF and LOS conditions in this window (even though LOS supersedes LOF). Having all conditions visible can be helpful when troubleshooting the ONS 15454. If you want to retrieve conditions that obey a root-cause hierarchy (that is, LOS supersedes and replaces LOF), you can exclude the same root causes by checking a check box in the window.
Fault conditions include reported alarms and Not Reported or Not Alarmed conditions. Refer to the trouble notifications information in the Cisco ONS 15454 Troubleshooting Guide or Cisco ONS 15454 SDH Troubleshooting Guide for more information about alarm and condition classifications.
21.3.5 Controlling the Conditions Display
You can control the display of the conditions on the Conditions window. Table 21-2 shows the actions you can perform in the window.
21.3.5.1 Retrieving and Displaying Conditions
The current set of all existing conditions maintained by the alarm manager can be seen when you click the Retrieve button. The set of conditions retrieved is relative to the CTC view. For example, if you click the button while displaying the node view, node-specific conditions appear. If you click the button while displaying the network view, all conditions for the network (including ONS 15454 nodes and other connected nodes) appear, and the card view shows only card-specific conditions.
You can also set a node to display conditions using the time zone where the node is located, rather than the time zone of the PC where they are being viewed. See the "DLP-G118 Display Alarms and Conditions Using Time Zone" task on page 8-10 for instructions.
21.3.5.2 Conditions Column Descriptions
Table 21-3 lists the Conditions window column headings and the information recorded in each column.
Table 21-3 Conditions Column Description
Date
Date and time of the condition.
Object
TL1 AID for the condition object. For an STSmon or VTmon, the object.
Eqpt Type
Card type in this slot.
Slot
Slot where the condition occurred (appears only in network and node view).
Port
Port where the condition occurred. For STSTerm and VTTerm, the port refers to the upstream card it is partnered with.
Path Width
Width of the data path.
Sev1
Severity level: CR (Critical), MJ (Major), MN (Minor), NA (Not Alarmed), NR (Not Reported).
SA 1
Indicates a service-affecting alarm (when checked).
Cond
The error message/alarm name; these names are alphabetically defined in the Cisco ONS 15454 Troubleshooting Guide or Cisco ONS 15454 SDH Troubleshooting Guide.
Description
Description of the condition.
1 All alarms, their severities, and service-affecting statuses are also displayed in the Condition tab unless you choose to filter the alarm from the display using the Filter button.
21.3.5.3 Filtering Conditions
The condition display can be filtered to prevent display of conditions (including alarms) with certain severities or that occurred between certain dates. You can set the filtering parameters by clicking the Filter button at the bottom-left of the Conditions window. You can turn the filter on or off by clicking the Filter tool at the bottom-right of the window. CTC retains your filter activation setting. For example, if you turn the filter on and then log out, CTC keeps the filter active the next time your user ID is activated.
21.3.6 Viewing History
The History window displays historic alarm or condition data for the node or for your login session. You can chose to display only alarm history, only events, or both by checking check boxes in the History > Node window. You can view network-level alarm and condition history, such as for circuits, at that level. At the node level, you can see all port (facility), card, STS, and system-level history entries. For example, protection-switching events or performance-monitoring threshold crossings appear here. If you double-click a card, you can view all port, card, and STS alarm or condition history that directly affects the card. See the "DLP-G116 View Alarm or Event History" task on page 8-8.
The ONS 15454 can store up to 640 critical alarm messages, 640 major alarm messages, 640 minor alarm messages, and 640 condition messages. When any of these limits is reached, the ONS 15454 discards the oldest events in that category.
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Different views of CTC display different kinds of history:
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If you check the History window Alarms check box, you display the node history of alarms. If you check the Events check box, you display the node history of Not Alarmed and transient events (conditions). If you check both check boxes, you retrieve node history for both.
21.3.6.1 History Column Descriptions
Table 21-4 lists the History window column headings and the information recorded in each column.
21.3.6.2 Retrieving and Displaying Alarm and Condition History
You can retrieve and view the history of alarms and conditions, including transient conditions (passing notifications of processes as they occur) in the CTC History window. The information in this window is specific to the view where it is shown (that is, network history in the network view, node history in the node view, and card history in the card view).
The node and card history views are each divided into two tabs. In node view, when you click the Retrieve button, you can see the history of alarms, conditions, and transients that have occurred on the node in the History > Node window, and the history of alarms, conditions, and transients that have occurred on the node during your login session in the History > Session window. In the card-view history window, after you retrieve the card history, you can see the history of alarms, conditions, and transients on the card in the History > Card window, or a history of alarms, conditions, and transients that have occurred during your login session in the History > Session window. You can also filter the severities and occurrence period in these history windows.
21.4 Alarm Severities
ONS 15454 alarm severities follow the Telcordia GR-253-CORE standard, so a condition might be Alarmed (at a severity of Critical [CR], Major [MJ], or Minor [MN]), Not Alarmed (NA), or Not Reported (NR). These severities are reported in the CTC software Alarms, Conditions, and History windows at all levels: network, shelf, and card.
ONS equipment provides a standard profile named Default listing all alarms and conditions with severity settings based on Telcordia GR-253-CORE and other standards, but users can create their own profiles with different settings for some or all conditions and apply these wherever desired. (See the "Alarm Profiles" section.) For example, in a custom alarm profile, the default severity of a carrier loss (CARLOSS) alarm on an Ethernet port could be changed from major to critical. The profile allows setting to Not Reported or Not Alarmed, as well as the three alarmed severities.
Critical and Major severities are only used for service-affecting alarms. If a condition is set as Critical or Major by profile, it will raise as Minor alarm in the following situations:
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Because of this possibility of being raised at two different levels, the alarm profile pane shows Critical as CR / MN and Major as MJ / MN.
21.5 Alarm Profiles
The alarm profiles feature allows you to change default alarm severities by creating unique alarm profiles for individual ONS 15454 ports, cards, or nodes. A created alarm profile can be applied to any node on the network. Alarm profiles can be saved to a file and imported elsewhere in the network, but the profile must be stored locally on a node before it can be applied to the node, its cards, or its cards' ports.
CTC can store up to ten active alarm profiles at any time to apply to the node. Custom profiles can take eight of these active profile positions. Two other profiles, Default profile and Inherited profile, are reserved by the NE, and cannot be edited.The reserved Default profile contains Telcordia GR-253-CORE severities. The reserved Inherited profile allows port alarm severities to be governed by the card-level severities, or card alarm severities to be determined by the node-level severities.
If one or more alarm profiles have been stored as files from elsewhere in the network onto the local PC or server hard drive where CTC resides, you can utilize as many profiles as you can physically store by deleting and replacing them locally in CTC so that only eight are active at any given time.
See the "NTP-G68 Create, Download, and Assign Alarm Severity Profiles" procedure on page 8-16.
21.5.1 Creating and Modifying Alarm Profiles
Alarm profiles are created in the network view using the Provisioning > Alarm Profiles tabs. Figure 21-2 shows the default list of alarm severities. A default alarm severity following Telcordia GR-253-CORE standards is preprovisioned for every alarm. After loading the default profile or another profile on the node, you can clone a profile to create custom profiles. After the new profile is created, the Alarm Profiles window shows the original profile (frequently Default) and the new profile.
Figure 21-2 Network View Alarm Profiles Window
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Wherever it is applied, the Default alarm profile sets severities to standard Telcordia GR-253-CORE settings. In the Inherited profile, alarms inherit, or copy, severity from the next-highest level. For example, a card with an Inherited alarm profile copies the severities used by the node housing the card. If you choose the Inherited profile from the network view, the severities at the lower levels (node and card) are copied from this selection.
You do not have to apply a single severity profile to the node-, card-, and port-level alarms. Different profiles can be applied at different levels. You could use the inherited or default profile on a node and on all cards and ports, but apply a custom profile that downgrades an alarm on one particular card. For example, you might choose to downgrade an OC-N unequipped path alarm (UNEQ-P) from Critical (CR) to Not Alarmed (NA) on an optical card because this alarm raises and then clears every time you create a circuit. UNEQ-P alarms for the card with the custom profile would not display on the Alarms tab (but they would still be recorded on the Conditions and History tabs.)
When you modify severities in an alarm profile:
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The Load and Store buttons are not available for Retrieve and Maintenance users.
The Delete and Store options will only display nodes to delete profiles from or store profiles to if the user has provisioning permission for those nodes. If the user does not have the proper permissions, CTC greys out the buttons and they are not available to the user.
21.5.2 Alarm Profile Buttons
The Alarm Profiles window displays six buttons at the bottom of the screen. Table 21-5 lists and describes each of the alarm profile buttons and their functions.
21.5.3 Alarm Profile Editing
Table 21-6 lists and describes the five profile-editing options available when you right-click an alarm item in the profile column (such as Default).
21.5.4 Alarm Severity Options
To change or assign alarm severity, left-click the alarm severity you want to change in the alarm profile column. Seven severity levels appear for the alarm:
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Inherited and Use Default severity levels only appear in alarm profiles. They do not appear when you view alarms, history, or conditions.
21.5.5 Row Display Options
In the network or node view, the Alarm Profiles window (Alarm Profile Editor for Node view) displays three check boxes at the bottom of the window:
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21.5.6 Applying Alarm Profiles
In CTC node view, the Alarm Behavior window displays alarm profiles for the node. In card view, the Alarm Behavior window displays the alarm profiles for the selected card. Alarm profiles form a hierarchy. A node-level alarm profile applies to all cards in the node except cards that have their own profiles. A card-level alarm profile applies to all ports on the card except ports that have their own profiles.
At the node level, you can apply profile changes on a card-by-card basis or set a profile for the entire node. At the card-level view, you can apply profile changes on a port-by-port basis or set alarm profiles for all ports on that card. Figure 21-3 shows alarm profiles for an OPT-BST card.
Figure 21-3 OPT-BST Card Alarm Profiles
21.6 Alarm Suppression
ONS 15454 nodes have an alarm suppression option that clears raised alarm messages for the node, chassis, one or more slots (cards), or one or more ports. After they are cleared, these alarms change appearance from their normal severity color to white and they can be cleared from the display by clicking Synchronize. Alarm suppression itself raises an alarm called AS-CMD that is shown in applicable Alarms windows. Node-level suppression is shown in the node view Alarms window, and card or port-level suppression is shown in all views. The AS-CMD alarm itself is not cleared by the suppress command. Each instance of this alarm indicates its object separately in the Object column.
A suppression command applied at a higher level does not supersede a command applied at a lower level. For example, applying a node-level alarm suppression command makes all raised alarms for the node appear to be cleared, but it does not cancel out card-level or port-level suppression. Each of these conditions can exist independently and must be cleared independently.
Suppression causes the entity alarm to behave like a Not Reported event. This means that the alarms, having been suppressed from view in the Alarms window, are now only shown in the Conditions window. The suppressed alarms are displayed with their usual visual characteristics (service-affecting status and color-coding) in the window. The alarms still appear in the History window.
See the "NTP-G70 Suppress Alarms or Discontinue Alarm Suppression" procedure on page 8-28.
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21.7 External Alarms and Controls
External alarm inputs can be provisioned on the Alarm Interface Controller-International (AIC-I) card for external sensors such as an open door and flood sensors, temperature sensors, and other environmental conditions. External control outputs on these two cards allow you to drive external visual or audible devices such as bells and lights. They can control other devices such as generators, heaters, and fans.
Up to 12 external alarm inputs and four external controls are available with the AIC-I card. If you also provision the alarm extension panel (AEP), there are 32 inputs and 16 outputs. The AEP is compatible with the ONS 15454 ANSI shelf only. It is not compatible with the ONS 15454 ETSI shelf.
21.7.1 External Alarms
You can provision each alarm input separately. Provisionable characteristics of external alarm inputs include:
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21.7.2 External Controls
You can provision each alarm output separately. Provisionable characteristics of alarm outputs include:
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21.7.3 Virtual Wires
Provisioning the AIC and AIC-I card provides a "virtual wires" option used to route external alarms and controls from different nodes to one or more alarm collection centers. In Figure 21-4, smoke detectors at Nodes 1, 2, 3, and 4 are assigned to Virtual Wire #1, and Virtual Wire #1 is provisioned as the trigger for an external bell at Node 1.
Figure 21-4 External Alarms and Controls Using a Virtual Wire
When using AIC virtual wires, you can:
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Posted: Tue Oct 9 08:14:02 PDT 2007
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