Alarm information reporting methods are presented. The method includes encapsulating alarm tokens constituent of a reported alarm in eXtensible Markup Language (XML) tags at communication network equipment reporting alarms. An XML aware parser associated with a network management system, extracts alarm tokens based on the encapsulating XML tags and triggers diverse network management functions based specified presence of alarm token groups in respect of a reported alarm. Each XML tag includes: a specification regarding compliance with of a standard and a recommendation, a specification regarding an alarm type, and a specification regarding an alarm tag name. Advantages are derived from a communication equipment development independence, a network management system development independence, a network management function development independence, employing a single alarm log file for concurrently reporting alarms for multiple network management functions at reduced alarm reporting overheads, an operational resilience of a network management system in respect of a newly reported alarm token in respect of an existing alarm, an operational resilience of the network management system in respect of a newly reported alarm, and only the network management functions requiring a particular no longer reported alarm token in processing an alarm being affected.