Alcatel Lucent

Alcatel-lucent Canada Inc.

James Stewart McCormick

Jonathan L Bosloy

John Burns

Shawn P McAllister

David Ker

David Furshpan

Wei Gu

Kulpreet Singh Badial

A method and apparatus are provided for monitoring resource utilization within a connection oriented switch. An operator defines a utilization threshold in terms of percentage of maximum capacity, and a connection resource tracker determines whether utilization of specified resources within the switch have exceeded this threshold. The switch then either sends a report to the operator identifying all such resources, or generates an alarm, revealing sources of congestion within the switch without requiring the operator to manually query each resource. The method and apparatus can alternatively be used to monitor for underutilization of resources. The method and apparatus allow rapid diagnostic and simplified monitoring of connection oriented switches.

Method and apparatus for network element resource utilization tracking

A method and apparatus for processing call signaling messages during burst overloading and sustained overloading of a communications switch include processing that begins by receiving a plurality of call signaling messages, which may be call set-up messages, connect messages, call proceeding messages, call release messages, release complete messages, and/or link layer information. The processing then continues by comparing a queue occupancy level of a call processing queue with a first queue occupancy threshold. If the queue occupancy level compares unfavorably with the first queue occupancy threshold (e.g., the queue is storing more messages than desired), call signaling messages are enqueued into the call processing queue based on the types of the call signaling messages. For example, dispensable call signaling messages are enqueued in a LIFO manner while indispensable and essential messages are enqueued in a FIFO manner. Dispensable messages are those, that if dropped, have minimal impact on the efficiency of the communication switch and/or do not evoke a time-out process to release whatever communication resources have been allocated to a particular communication set-up request.

Method and apparatus for processing call signaling messages

A method and device for recording call failure information in a data transmission system is provided. The failure logs generated in response to a failure event include a failure type and a first timestamp. A log record is created for a first failure log based on the failure type, and storied in a log record storage. Whenever a further failure log is generated in response to the same failure event, the further failure log includes said failure type and a current timestamp, so that it will receive the same identifier. The log record is updated to document the current timestamp.

Call failure recording

A communication switch that includes a multiprocessor control block and a method therefore is presented. The multiprocessor control block includes a centralized resource and routing processor that controls resource allocation and routing functionality within the switch. A plurality of intermediate processors operably coupled to the resource and routing processor perform call processing for corresponding portions of the connections supported by the switch, where such call processing includes issuing resource allocation requests to the resource and routing processor. Each of the intermediate processors further performs functions associated with a signaling layer portion of the protocol stack. The multiprocessor control block also includes a link layer processor operably coupled to the plurality of intermediate processors, where the link layer processor also couples to a switching fabric of the communication switch. The link layer processor receives ingress data units from the switching fabric and selectively forwards these ingress data units to one or more of the plurality of intermediate processors for processing. The link layer processor also received egress data units from the plurality of intermediate processors that it forwards to the switching fabric.

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Stittsville, Canada

James Stewart McCormick