Chasing a Definition of “Alarm”

Alarm management has been around for decades in telecom solutions. We have seen various efforts to define standardised alarm interfaces. The research community has focused on various alarms correlation strategies. Still, after years of effort in industry and research alike, network administrators are flooded with alarms; alarms are suffering from poor information quality; and the costs of alarm integration have not decreased. In this paper, we explore the concept of ‘alarm’. We define ‘alarm’ and alarm-type concepts by investigating the different definitions currently in use in standards and research efforts. Based on statistical alarm data from a mobile operator we argue that operational and capital expenditures would decrease if alarm sources would apply to our alarm model.

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