Nov 10,2000 04:56:19 PM Other Failures in this group: Clear : IF-192.168.1.79 : Interface clear. Events Pick Up / Unpick Annotate History Annotation Merge Clear Delete Refresh Figure 12.27 Alert details in HTML interface. that is generated. "Alarm Viewer" is the main user interface tool used by network administrators. Some of its functions, such as sending alarms, problem management and work assignment, are central to the NMS. The operator can navigate the alarms database. Alarm details include a brief description about the device which has failed, the owner with whom the alarm is associated, the date and time of the alarm and the alarm severity. The alarm categories are assigned with distinct colours for easy identification. There are default colours - critical, red; major, brown; minor, yellow; warning, aqua; and clear, lime - but the colours are configurable. Details regarding a particular alarm such as message, owner and time are main- tained by the NMS. These details are seen in a form when the user clicks on a par- ticular alarm. Figure 12.27 illustrates how these are shown in HTML format. When an alarm occurs and is displayed, it must be handled and the problem associated with it should be solved. FMS allows alarms to be handled within the software package; functions for handling alarms include: viewing corresponding events attending to the alarm annotating the alarm OSS for Telecom Networks viewing the alarm history viewing annotation for the alarm viewing annotation and history together refreshing the alarm clearing the alarm deleting the alarm. 12.12 Administration FMS gives network administrators sophisticated event management, including alert- ing, automated actions, event correlation, trap/event/alert filtering and trap/event parsing. For network management staff, fault detection is an online process that provides an indication of malfunctioning. Fault detection and notification are two functional areas which should identify problems and inform the system administrator. FMS handles error conditions, 