Current process control systems are composed of a large number of components and subsystems operating at different layers of the control system architecture model (i.e. measurement and control devices, Distributed Control Systems, Advanced Process Control systems, and Manufacturing Execution Systems). The IMC-AESOP project aims at designing the next generation architecture of process automation systems. In order to ensure system scalability and modularity, the new architectural design follows the SOA (Service-Oriented Architecture) design principles. Moreover, the design assumes adoption of various technologies with the aim to enable the control systems to meet all functional and performance requirements. The CEP (Complex Event Processing) technology has been selected for being able to provide efficient asynchronous communication (within and across architecture layers) and the capability of temporal reasoning over large amounts of system-generated events. This paper describes the intermediate results of the IMC-AESOP project, outlining the architectural concepts related to the use of the SOA and CEP technologies in the context of advanced alarm management applications - alarm load shedding and state-based alarming.