Fault management of a fiber optic LAN

Abstract

The application of an expert system for network management of a prototype optical fiber Local Area Network (LAN) is described. The logical bus physical star layout of the Lehigh University fiber LAN is designed for simultaneous 0. 83 jim and 1. 3 un operation using Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) technology. The LAN application examined in this paper involves transmission at 0. 83 jim on multimode fiber with a 10 Mbps CSMA/CD MAC protocol (the 1. 3 im wavelength allows for future integration ofa 100 Mbps FDDI protocol). The Lehigh University LAN being described uses the NOVELL 386 operating system (OS) for network control. Network Management of this fiber LAN is provided by a prototype expert system which is coupled to the Netware 386 OS. The expert system uses the Netware data base in fault management The expert system also provides a detailed historical record of network operation. The expert system is designed to learn by adding new fault diagnosis rules as new types of faults occur and new causes for faults are defined. Early experiences with expert system network management of the 10 Mbps fiber LAN are discussed.© (1991) COPYRIGHT SPIE--The International Society for Optical Engineering. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.