Importance

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Abstract

A scheme for propagating, between views of a network, status information for elements of the network in a way that mirrors how the network is maintained. The propagation scheme divides the elements of the network into either connections or equipment, groups the elements in each of these two partitions into increasingly higher-level views and propagates status of fundamental and compound objects between the different views to help locate the source of any malfunction of the network. This status propagation scheme is particularly suited for monitoring a wide-area network, where there are more connections and more complex equipment than in a typical local area network, these connections are usually more geographically disbursed, and most importantly these connections are maintained by different people than those who maintain the other equipment of the network. By providing both a multi-level equipment hierarchy and a multi-level connection hierarchy, and providing both upward and sometimes downward propagation of status information between different views of the network, the present invention makes possible more rapid diagnostic of both connection and other equipment malfunction.

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First Claim