GENA stands for General Event Notification Architecture.

GENA Base defines an HTTP notification architecture that transmits notifications between HTTP resources. An HTTP resource could be any object which might need to send or receive a notification, for example a distribution list, buddy list, print job, etc. It was defined in Internet-Draft draft-cohen-gena-p-base-01.txt (now expired).

GENA Base Client to Arbiter provides for the ability to send and receive notifications using HTTP over TCP/IP and administratively scoped unreliable multicast UDP

User Datagram Protocol

The User Datagram Protocol is one of the core members of the Internet Protocol Suite, the set of network protocols used for the Internet. With UDP, computer applications can send messages, in this case referred to as datagrams, to other hosts on an Internet Protocol network without requiring...

. Provisions are made for the use of intermediary arbiters, called subscription arbiters, which handle routing notifications to their intended destination. It was defined in http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-cohen-gena-client (now expired).

History

During July 13-14 1998 the University of California Irvine convened WISEN: the Workshop on Internet-Scale Event Notification. This event brought together a number of experts of various fields and included a presentation on GENA by Josh Cohen of Microsoft. Delegates showcased their event notification architectures and haggled over requirements of the same. Josh's final slide includes the bullet points "GENA is being implemented by Microsoft Products" and "Our wish is to collaborate to agree on a standard. GENA or other, we will comply."

Interest in event notification appears to have waned after 1998 as participants were unable to come to common definitions of what is required for the definition of notification services and protocols. GENA was briefly considered for use in the Internet Printing Protocol

Internet Printing Protocol

In computing, the Internet Printing Protocol provides a standard network protocol for remote printing as well as for managing print jobs, media size, resolution, and so forth....

 but found a niche as part of the Universal Plug and Play

Universal Plug and Play

Universal Plug and Play is a set of networking protocols for primarily residential networks without enterprise class devices that permits networked devices, such as personal computers, printers, Internet gateways, Wi-Fi access points and mobile devices to seamlessly discover each other's presence...

 (UPnP) architecture.

Internet Drafts

GENA Base

• July 9, 1998

Client to Arbiter

• June 24, 1999
• September 6, 2000

See also

• Notification system
  Notification system
  A modern notification system is a combination of software and hardware that provides a means of delivering a message to a set of recipients. For example, notification systems can send an e-mail when a new topic has been added to Wikipedia. The complexity of the notification system is often...
  
   for details on generic message relaying systems
• Virtual synchrony
  Virtual synchrony
  Virtual synchrony is an interprocess messaging passing technology. Virtual synchrony systems allow programs running in a network to organize themselves into process groups, and to send messages to groups...
  
  to learn about how event notification systems can offer stronger ordering and fault-tolerance properties.