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Sending SMS alerts by using IBM Cloud Event Notifications

Sending SMS alerts by using IBM Cloud Event Notifications

In the IBM Cloud Monitoring service, you can configure single alerts and multi-condition alerts to notify support staff by an SMS (Short Message Service) message about problems that might require attention. Alerts can generate notifications to the IBM Cloud Event Notifications service to be handled as configured in that service.

Your IBM Cloud Monitoring instances can send events to IBM Cloud Event Notifications instances in the same accoount and in other accounts. IBM Cloud Event Notifications is available in a limited number of regions.

SMS messages can only be sent to phone numbers in the United States and Canada.

IBM Cloud Event Notifications supports message concatenation so SMS messages longer than 160 characters can be sent. However, messages will be sent in blocks of at most 160 characters. Multiple messages might result in additional charges to the recipient.

IBM Cloud Event Notifications supports a number of different destinations. This example describes sending an SMS message. For information on additional possible destinations, see the IBM Cloud Event Notifications documentation.

For a step-by-step tutorial, see Sending SMS notifications to IBM Cloud Event Notifications.

To configure 1 instance of the IBM Cloud Monitoring service to send notifications to IBM Cloud Event Notifications to be sent as an SMS message, do the following:

Step 1. Provision an IBM Cloud Event Notifications instance

Provision an IBM Cloud Event Notifications instance.

The IBM Cloud Event Notifications instance must be provisioned in the same account or ina different account as the Monitoring instance.

The number of events and filters that are available with IBM Cloud Event Notifications depends on the pricing plan selected. Review the limitations statement when creating your IBM Cloud Event Notifications instance for plan limitations.

Step 2. Define authorizations

Configure an authorization that grants IBM Cloud Monitoring access to IBM Cloud Event Notifications.

When both service instances are in the same account, choose 1 of the following options:

  • Option 1: To grant the IBM Cloud Monitoring service access to the IBM Cloud Event Notifications service, you must define an authorization where the source service is set to IBM Cloud Monitoring and all resources; the target service is set to IBM Cloud Event Notifications and all resources; and the service access includes both Reader and Event Source Manager access.

  • Option 2: To grant an instance of the IBM Cloud Monitoring service access to an instance of the IBM Cloud Event Notifications service, you must define an authorization where the source service is set to IBM Cloud Monitoring and Resources based on selected attributes; the target service is set to IBM Cloud Event Notifications and Resources based on selected attributes; and the service access includes both Reader and Event Source Manager access.

When both service instances are in the different accounts, define an authorization in the account that hosts the IBM Cloud Event Notifications service:

  1. In the IBM Cloud console, click Manage > Access (IAM), and select Authorizations.

  2. Click Create.

  3. Select a source account.

    If the source service that needs access to the target service is in this account, select This account.

    If the source service that needs access to the target service is in a different account, select Other account. Then, enter the account ID of the source account.

  4. Select IBM Cloud Monitoring as the source service. Then, set the scope of the access to All resources.

  5. Select IBM Cloud Event Notifications as the target service. Then, set the scope of the access to All resources or a single instance by configuring Resources based on selected attributes > Service Instance.

    Other attributes are not supported for this type of authorization.

  6. In the Service Access section, include both Reader and Event Source Manager access.

  7. Click Authorize.

If you create an authorization between a service in another account and a target service in your current account, you need to have access only to the target resource. For the source account, you need only the account number. 

For more information on how to define authorizations, see Using authorizations to grant access between services.

Step 3. Configure the IBM Cloud Event Notifications instance

  1. Configure a notification channel of type IBM Cloud Event Notifications.

    When you configure the channel, a source, with the same name as your Monitoring instance instance name, is automatically added to your IBM Cloud Event Notifications instance. You can view it in the IBM Cloud Event Notifications UI, in the Sources section.

  2. Create an IBM Cloud Event Notifications topic.

  3. Create an IBM Cloud Event Notifications destination.

  4. Create an IBM Cloud Event Notifications subscription.

    For Destination specify, IBM Cloud SMS service.

Next steps

Next, verify the setup. Configure a Monitoring alert to send to the configured notification channel.