System and method for determining a cause of electrical signal degradation based on optical signal degradation

An optical network management system, comprising:

• means for detecting degradation of an electrical signal converted from an optical signal transported via a plurality of optical network elements within an optical transmission system;
• means for correlating the degradation in the electrical domain with degradation of the optical transmission system in an optical domain based a plurality of threshold values associated with an optical performance parameter corresponding each of the optical network elements;
• and
• means for determining whether a cause of the degradation in the electrical domain stems from one or more of the optical network elements according to the correlation.

A computer-readable medium carrying one or more sequences of one or more instructions for monitoring an optical transmission system, the one or more sequences of one or more instructions include instructions which, when executed by one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform the steps of:

• detecting degradation of an electrical signal converted from an optical signal transported via a plurality of optical network elements within the optical transmission system;
• correlating the degradation in the electrical domain with degradation of the optical transmission system in an optical domain based a plurality of threshold values associated with an optical performance parameter corresponding each of the optical network elements;
• and
• determining whether a cause of the degradation in the electrical domain stems from one or more of the optical network elements according to the correlation.