An improved technique involves delivering asynchronous notifications of state changes of components of a data storage system by querying a database whose entries contain event descriptors along with a sequentially generated identifier value. In response to a state change of a component, a database server receives a state change indication and updates an entry in the database by recording the state change and generating a new identifier value. A management server running management software then detects state changes by noting the largest generated identifier value from a previous query and queries all entries in the database having an identifier value larger than that previous value. The layers of the management software that subscribe to state change indications of various components may then access those entries as needed.