Notification Configuration Information objects (NCIs) are the configuration objects that instruct Smarts NOTIF to handle incoming unpublished notifications. After Smarts NOTIF completes the ECI processing phase, unpublished notifications are sent to the NCI portion of Smarts NOTIF to process interactions between notifications.

Figure 1. NCI processing steps

When Smarts NOTIF receives an incoming unpublished notification, it looks for a matching NCI object. If a matching NCI object is found for the incoming notification, Smarts NOTIF checks several configuration parameters that are set in the NCI. If no matching NCI object is found for the incoming unpublished notification, the notification is published without further consideration.

When a matching NCI object is found for an incoming unpublished notification, the NCI processing portion of Smarts NOTIF checks for the following configuration parameters:

  1. Active property of the NCI object (that is, whether the Active check box is selected in the NCI setup Smarts NOTIF Editor. If the NCI object is Active, Smarts NOTIF continues to process that notification, checking the NCI configuration parameters listed below. If the NCI object is not Active, Smarts NOTIF does not publish the notification.

  2. NOTIF checks to see if the incoming notification clears other notifications, or inversely, whether this notification is cleared by other notifications.
  3. Publish delay NOTIF checks to see if there is a specified delay associated with the notification before further NCI processing continues.
  4. NOTIF checks to see if this notification causes another notification, or inversely, if this notification is caused by another notification.
  5. NOTIF checks to see if this notification aggregates from other notifications, or inversely, if this notification aggregates to another notification.
  6. NOTIF checks to see whether there is an ASL hook script that the NCI should call just before the notification is published (after all other NCI processing has been completed).
  7. NOTIF checks to see if there are any calculated values associated with the notification.

    These NCI configuration values are used to process the notification. The NCI process of NOTIF is an independent thread that receives information from other servers for the creation, deletion, and change of notifications through the ICS_NOTIFICATION hook script. It is not directly associated with ECI processing.

    There are two reasons NCI objects exist within NOTIF. They are either used to match incoming notifications, or they are used to create new notifications. In general, new notifications are those created because of aggregation.