The network control assistant (NCA), a real-time prototype expert system for network management

  • Authors:

  • Perry M. Kosieniak;Victor Mathis;Michael St. Jacques;Delano Stevens

  • Affiliations:

  • GTE Data Services, Inc., Tampa, FL;GTE Data Services, Inc., Tampa, FL;GTE Data Services, Inc., Tampa, FL;GTE Data services, Inc., Tampa, FL

  • Venue:
  • IEA/AIE '88 Proceedings of the 1st international conference on Industrial and engineering applications of artificial intelligence and expert systems - Volume 1
  • Year:
  • 1988

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Abstract

Prototype network management software supported by a real-time expert system to monitor and control the public telephone voice network is described. This system, called the Network Control Assistant (NCA), was mostly written in Prolog on an IBM PC/AT. The human interface for NCA consists of an efficiently designed hierarchy of color enhanced screens with user selected options. The responsive advisory system contains about 60 customized rules with features intended to enhance real-time performance. Other support software in NCA captures and parses telephone switch traffic reports in real-time using a natural language technique. Parsing was necessary because no direct data-acquisition interface was available on the target switches (GTE's No. 2 EAX and GTD-5) and verbose status reports designed to be read at a terminal by humans were intercepted as a source of data. Implementation issues and unique features for real-time use of NCA are addressed and pertinent conclusions are summarized.