A ERPS has a persistent defect condition. A notification (fault alarm) is sent to the management entity with the OID of the ERPS that has detected the fault. The management entity receiving the notification can identify the system from the network source address of the notification, and can identify the ERPS reporting the defect by the indices in the OID of the variables in the notification: tnErpsInstance - Also the index of the ERPS state table entry (tnERPSStateTable).