Using Webhooks to Measure Device Events

Webhooks can be thought of as automated API responses, without the request. It is a mechanism used by the Microsoft Graph API to deliver change notifications to clients. No manual polling is required for Webhooks to work. Via Webhooks, data is automatically passed to the clients when an update is made. Webhooks assure administrators of real-time metrics, and greatly ease troubleshooting.

The eG remote agent runs a dedicated test that pull real-time device events using Webhooks. Figure 1 depicts how the eG agent runs the test and collects diagnostics.

Figure 1 : How does the eG agent use Webhooks to pull device events?

  1. Whenever a device event is triggered on VMware AirWatch aka VMware Workspace ONE UEM, a new device event is sent from VMware AirWatch to the Notification endpoint. A notification endpoint is a URL which is publicly accessible via HTTPS so that Microsoft can send device events to the endpoint.

  2. The key information in the device event is device event ID. Notification endpoint will query Microsoft for details of the device event using the ‘device event ID’ received and tenant properties. In return, device event details will be sent in JSON format to notification endpoint.

  3. Device event response - i.e., the JSON response - received by the notification endpoint is parsed, written to CSV files, and stored in the H2 database.

  4. The eG agent queries the H2 database and reads the device event measures.

  5. The eG agent also filters/groups the metrics so read, and sends them to the eG manager.

  6. The eG manager publishes the metrics to the eG web console.

Before running the Webhooks-based test for VMware Airwatch component, make sure that the Pre-Requisites to Monitor VMware AirWatch are fulfilled.