Mapping alarms

Q: Alarms, A0001 for example, is rather generic in the common SXL.

In the A0001, we have 4 different alarms that would map to that particular alarm for example. How do we differentiate what kind of hardware error is returned?

The alarm-code-ID and external code ID maps to a single alarm, the A0001. In what part of the Alarm-Issue message would I describe that this specific hardware error is an IO-missing alarm for example? Or a Group missing?

Is the External code ID supposed to be a differentiator within a single alarm-group?

For example, A0001 would have external code IDs 1,2,3 and 4 to differentiate between 4 distinct types of hardware errors?

A: The SXL is designed to as generic as possible in order to support different manufacturers. This also means that a mapping needs to be done between the SXL specific alarm codes (A0001, A0002, etc.) and each manufacturers own internal alarm codes. In most cases this means that many internal alarms codes needs to translated in to a single alarm (e.g. A0001), just as you've described. To deal with this mapping and to differentiate alarms is something that the RSMP interface needs to support.

As an extra information we added "externalAlarmCodeId" which is the manufacturers own internal alarm code. The contens of "externalAlarmCodeId" can be variable for a single alarm code (e.g. AL001) depending of which internal alarm that was activated.

Q: Ok, so many internal alarms will map to a single alarm code ID (aka A0001 for example)

What about acknowledgements and suspends then? Does a Suspend command block an entire group of alarms (A0001) or should the suspend work on the external alarm code IDs as well?

So that a user can suspend some of the messages that belong to A0001 for example?

And the same with acknowledge? Are we acknowledging a group of alarms (A00001) or the individual externalAlarmcodeIDs?

A: Alarm acknowledge, blocking and suspends uses the same concept. For alarm acknowledge, blocking and suspending - only the RSMP-specific alarm codes are used (e.g. A0001) and external alarms codes aren't taken into account.