Network management system using status suppression to isolate network faults

A method for isolating a fault in a computer network including a plurality of interconnected network devices, said method using a network management system executing the steps of:

• maintaining models of said network devices and model relations between said network devices;
• maintaining a fault status for each of the network devices that is capable of being polled, the fault status being contained in the corresponding model and being obtained by polling the corresponding network device;
• when contact between the network management system and a first network device is lost, setting the fault status of the first network device and determining the fault status of all network devices adjacent to the first network device, the determining step including the model of the first network device maintaining a count of the number of said network devices that are directly connected to the first network device, maintaining a count of the number of adjacent network devices for which the fault status is set, and comparing the count of total adjacent network devices with the count of adjacent network devices for which the fault status is set, the fault status of the first network device being suppressed when the counts are equal.