Aggregating alarms into clusters to display service-affecting events on a graphical user interface

A method comprising the steps of

• obtaining alarms from a multi-layer network;
• correlating the alarms across the multi-layer network based on a combination of time, flow relationships, and layer relationships;
• and
• presenting a visualization of the correlated alarms, wherein the visualization includes a main display area to display one or more geometrical shapes representing one or more alarm clusters, respectively, wherein each alarm cluster represents a potential root-cause event in the multi-layer network, and one or more interactive objects that, when selected by a user, provide additional information associated with the one or more alarm clusters, and each of the one or more geometrical shapes has a size based upon an effect of an associated alarm,
• wherein the step of presenting the visualization includes plotting the geometrical shapes, which correspond to the correlated alarms and services, on a graph of having a first axis and a second axis, wherein the first axis is one of affected bandwidth and number of services affected, and wherein the second axis is time, wherein the one or more geometrical shapes each with a corresponding size are displayed in the graph on corresponding values for the first axis and the second axis.

A system comprising

• a processor, and
• a memory device configured to store software logic having instructions that, when executed, enable the processor to
• receive alarms based on parameters detected at different points of a multi-layer network;
• analyze the alarms to determine correlations among sets of alarms to group related alarms into bundles;
• and
• graphically display each bundle as a single object on an interactive Graphical User Interface (GUI) including a main display area for displaying one or more geometrical shapes that represents one or more alarm clusters, respectively, wherein each alarm cluster represents a potential root-cause event in the multi-layer network, the GUI further including one or more interactive objects that, when selected by a user, provide additional information associated with the one or more alarm clusters, and each of the one or more geometrical shapes has a size based upon an effect of an associated alarm,
• wherein the graphically display on the interactive GUI includes displaying each bundle in a logarithmic graph having a first axis and a second axis, the first axis representing an age of the respective bundle, the second axis representing one of an amount of bandwidth at risk and a number of affected services on account of the bundle, wherein the one or more geometrical shapes each with a corresponding size are displayed in the graph on corresponding values for the first axis and the second axis.