Once the resource monitoring environment is created, unsolicited management information can flow from the agent to the manager. When certain defined events occur, a resource object sends a notification. The VTAM® topology agent sends this notification data to CMIP services. CMIP services applies the filtering constructs based on active EFDs to the notification message. If it is determined that the event matches a filter, CMIP services determines which manager application program should receive the message in an event report. Note that multiple event reports might be sent to multiple destinations based on a single notification event. This situation might occur when multiple EFD filters are satisfied by a particular notification event.

The event notification data is subject to the same merge process used for the snapshot data. See ACTION(snapshot) update merging for a description of the merge process. The merging of event data is based on the state of the resource being reported. If the state to be reported is a transient state (non-resting state), the event data is held and merged with other event data until the resource is reporting event data with a resting state. As with the snapshot merge process, the event merging is timed such that resources that remain in transient states too long are reported.

Merging event data has an additional consideration that does not apply to the snapshot update data: the event data specifies the reason for the event. It is possible for event data with different reasons to be merged. In that case, the general rule used by the VTAM topology agent is that the reason for event data that was merged last is used in the reported notification. For example, if an object-creation event occurred but the state was a transient state, the event data is held. Subsequent state-change event data might be merged with the object-creation data. When the event notification is finally sent, the reason specifies state-change. The manager application program can infer the creation of the object by having no previous report of the object.

CMIP services sends the notification data to the manager in the form of a CMIP event-report request. VTAM supports unconfirmed event-reports only (m-EventReport).