A method of suppressing a side-effect alarm in a network management system that includes a plurality of managed network elements, wherein the side-effect alarm arrives at the network management system before a triggering alarm, the method comprising the steps of creating and storing state information for each of the managed network elements, wherein the state information comprises a current connection state value and a parent state value; receiving segment alarm information that identifies a first arriving alarm relating to a segment of the connection; determining a new connection state value to which the connection transitions as a result of the segment alarm identified in the segment alarm information and based on the current connection state value; selectively suppressing or forwarding an alarm reflecting the new connection state value based on the parent state value, a self state transition value, and a secondary state transition value.