The Heart Beacon involves pre and post configuration management of the network and is neutral to systems and middleware. What Vinton Cerf and his team described metaphorically as the heartbeat is actually a interval in time where (state meta) data is gathered and placed into temporary holding areas, queues, file structures for onward delivery by middleware software such as agents, bots, motes, scripts.   The heartbeat is an opportunity in time to synchronize data harvesting protecting bandwidth on low capacity networks prior to entry into portals and fusion centers - the point of no return in context with event time stamping.  After transition to the middleware or cloud layer, it is too late to try and re-establish timing of event / alert chain of custody.  Many systems report the same event at different time intervals.  Too fast updates tend to saturate the network.  Too slow refresh rates cause the data to be too "stale" for targeting systems.   Operational discipline derived from years of military testing and simulation is reused across the entire portfolio of assets.  The Beacon process is initiated when agencies act on an event / alert via operational scenario selecting from beacon technologies shaping NET EFFECT.  Multicast broadcasts are shaped and filtered by zones using router hop counts to emulate condition thresholds through visual geospatial views of effect expansion and contractions while filtering desired users and evacuee's in and out of impacted zones enhancing (medical) triage.