A method of suppressing a side-effect alarm in a network management system
that includes a plurality of managed network elements, wherein the
side-effect alarm arrives at the network management system before a
triggering alarm, the method comprising the steps of creating and storing
state information for each of the managed network elements, wherein the
state information comprises a current connection state value and a parent
state value; receiving segment alarm information that identifies a first
arriving alarm relating to a segment of the connection; determining a new
connection state value to which the connection transitions as a result of
the segment alarm identified in the segment alarm information and based
on the current connection state value; selectively suppressing or
forwarding an alarm reflecting the new connection state value based on
the parent state value, a self state transition value, and a secondary
state transition value.