Asynchronous notification support

The Web Services API asynchronous notification facility provides a means for which client applications can subscribe to and receive notification messages regarding a set of predefined management events. Starting with version 2.16.0 (with the suitable MCL bundle) of the Support Element console the Web Services API asynchronous notification facility has been expanded to support registering for and receiving notifications over the BCPii interface. [Added by feature bcpii-notifications]

Note: Please refer to the BCPii documentation for a given OS to determine if client-side support is available.

Notification messages:

Notification messages from BCPii will include the characteristics, properties and bodies outlined in Notification message formats. Each message is represented as a JSON object containing the following fields and values:

Field name Type Description
headers Object A nested object that contains the following:
  • The common message properties and characteristics as documented in the Common message characteristics section.
  • The extended message properties and characteristics as documented in Notification message formats for the specific type of notification being received.
  • The target-name message property. The value for this property is the target name of the resource associated with the notification.1
  • The event-name message property. The value for this property will be the name of the registered event that triggered the notification.1
body Object A nested object containing the body of the notification message as documented in Notification message formats for the specific type of notification being received
1BCPii exclusive property

In addition to the formats documented in Notification message formats several other formats exist that are exclusive to BCPii. These are as follows:

Console Starting notification:

A Console Starting notification is emitted by the API to report that the console application has started. This will always be the first notification sent once communications are re-established after a reboot cycle.

In addition to the common message properties and characteristics, the following additional message property is provided for this type of notification:

Message property name Description
notification-type Contains the value "console-starting".

The body of a Console Starting notification message is a JSON representation of an object that contains the following field and value:

Field name Type Description
console-type String Enum The type of console:
  • "hmc" - A Hardware Management Console (HMC).
  • "se" - A Support Element console (SE).

Console Heartbeat notification:

A Console Heartbeat notification is emitted by the API to indicate normal operation at regular 2-minute intervals.

In addition to the common message properties and characteristics, the following additional message property is provided for this type of notification:

Message property name Description
notification-type Contains the value "console-heartbeat".

The body of a Console Heartbeat notification message is always null.

Operating System Message notification:

The format of an Operating System Message notification will be as described in the Notification message formats section with one notable exception. The "message-text" field of the body's nested os-message-info object may need to be broken up due to size constraints and arrive across multiple messages. If this is the case all other characteristics, properties, and body fields will remain consistent between the messages, and the "os-messages" field array will only contain the single os-message-info object. The value of each "message-text" can be concatenated in the order of arrival to construct the original message text, split messages will always arrive consecutively.

Notification Registration:

Notification registration is handled by a set of REST operations that are made available exclusively for the BCPii interface. These requests can target the local SE or any other SE that is reachable.