[This is preliminary documentation and subject to change.]
CIMOM supports the registration for and distribution of event notifications. Event consumers register to receive particular types of notifications. Event providers register to supply particular types of notifications. To enable event consumers to operate independently from event providers, CIMOM acts as the intermediary, matching registered consumers with corresponding providers and forwarding appropriate events.
CIMOM produces two types of events: timer events and intrinsic events. Timer events occur either periodically, according to a specified time interval, or once at a specified time. Intrinsic events correspond to changes in data stored in the CIMOM repository.
Event providers can support a third type of event called an extrinsic event in addition to timer events and intrinsic events. Although WBEM prefers that providers use intrinsic events whenever possible, it is sometimes necessary to create new event types to represent changes to provider-specific managed objects. Events pertaining to provider-specific events are called extrinsic events.
CIMOM forwards the notifications of all types of events to applications that have registered to receive them. For a detailed description of the event services architecture, see Event Notification.