Understanding events and commands

Understanding the arrangement of events and commands is essential to enhance communication, automation, and decision-making in the BMC Helix Edge ecosystem.
Read on to understand data structures and see examples of by using event and command representation to manage IoT operations flexibly and more flexibly.

Events

Events in BMC Helix Edge represent significant occurrences, states, or changes in the IoT ecosystem. They are crucial information to trigger actions, notifications, or further analysis. Events are structured data entities encapsulating details about the occurrence, its context, and relevant metadata.

The following scenarios use the example of creating a service request for an oil level going down in BMC Helix Edge:

Detecting events

• In Machine Learning (ML), if you configure a Machine Learning algorithm with the device to predict device failures, including low oil levels, the Machine Learning model continuously analyzes historical data and identifies patterns indicative of decreasing oil levels. When the ML model predicts a potential issue, BMC Helix Edge triggers an event automatically, notifying maintenance teams to create a service request.
  For information about configuring ML, see Machine-Learning-functions.
• In rules configuration, you set up a rule stating that if the oil level falls below a predefined threshold, BMC Helix Edge must generate a critical event. When the real-time monitoring detects this condition, BMC Helix Edge raises a corresponding event, signaling the need to create a service request for further investigation.
  For information about configuring rules, see Rules-management.
• When you add a new device, such as a sensor for oil level monitoring, to the network, BMC Helix Edge identifies this addition. BMC Helix Edge generates an event to inform administrators, prompting them to create a service request to configure and integrate the new device into the monitoring system. 

Reading event values per details

You can access the event log levels in BMC Helix Edge to understand the details of an event. You can review specifics such as the time stamp, the type of event, for example, low oil level, and additional details that the system provides.

This information explains the service request by providing context on the oil-level issue. For information about viewing events, see Creating-dashboards-and-visualizing-data. 

Raising a new event because of workflow

In a proactive maintenance workflow, BMC Helix Edge might trigger a series of actions when a low oil level event is detected. As part of this workflow, BMC Helix Edge generates a new event to indicate the initiation of the service request process. This event-driven approach ensures timely response and resolution to the identified issue. For information about creating a workflow, see Building a workflow.

Data structure of events

The BMCEvent structure provides a standardized format for representing events in BMC Helix Edge.

The following table provides a breakdown of key fields:

Example 

Consider the structure of an event triggered by a sudden temperature rise in an industrial device:

Commands

Commands in BMC Helix Edge are instructions or directives sent to devices in the IoT network. These commands can trigger specific actions, configurations, or device responses. They play a crucial role in orchestrating device behavior and implementing changes.

Example

In this example, the AdjustParameters command instructs IndustrialMachine1 to adjust its temperature threshold to 90.0 degrees Celsius and switch to normal operating mode.