Notifications Overview

The Notifications service enables you to set up communication channels for publishing messages using topics  and subscriptions . When a message is published to a topic, the Notifications service sends the message to all of the topic's subscriptions.

When a subscriber’s endpoint does not acknowledge receipt of the message, the Notifications service retries delivery. This situation can occur when the endpoint is offline. For example, the email server for an email address may be down.

You can change the retry duration for a subscription. For instructions using the Console, see To update the retry duration for a subscription. For the API, use the following operation: UpdateSubscription.

The following concepts are essential to working with Notifications.

message

The content that is published to a topic. Each message is delivered at least once per subscription. Every message sent out as email contains a link to unsubscribe from the related topic.

subscription

An endpoint for a topic. Published messages are sent to each subscription for a topic. For supported subscription protocols, see To create a subscription.

topic

A communication channel for sending messages to the subscriptions in the topic. Each topic name is unique across the tenancy.

Notifications publishes messages when event rules are triggered, alarms are breached, or someone directly publishes a message.

Event rules: Notifications sends messages  when rules are triggered. The message is sent to the topic  specified in the rule. For example, a message might be configured for new databases. See Managing Rules for Events.

Alarms: Notifications sends alarm messages when alarms  are breached. The alarm message is sent to the topic  specified in the alarm. For example, an alarm message might be configured for high CPU usage. See Managing Alarms.

Direct publication: Notifications sends messages  when you (or a service or app) publish the messages directly. The message is sent to the topic  you specify. See Publishing Messages.

The Notifications service is available in all Oracle Cloud Infrastructure commercial regions. See About Regions and Availability Domains for the list of available regions, along with associated locations, region identifiers, region keys, and availability domains.

Consider the following service features when deciding whether to use the Notifications service or the Email Delivery service to send your email messages. For more information about Email Delivery, see Overview of the Email Delivery Service.

Most types of Oracle Cloud Infrastructure resources have a unique, Oracle-assigned identifier called an Oracle Cloud ID (OCID). For information about the OCID format and other ways to identify your resources, see Resource Identifiers.

You can move topics and subscriptions from one compartment to another. When you move a topic to a new compartment, its associated subscriptions remain in their existing compartment. The same consideration applies when moving a subscription: its associated topic remains in its existing compartment.

After you move the topic or subscription to the new compartment, inherent policies apply immediately and affect access to the moved topic or subscription through the Console. For more information, see To move a resource to a different compartment.

You can access the Notifications service using the Console (a browser-based interface) or the REST API. Instructions for the Console and API are included in topics throughout this guide. For a list of available SDKs, see Software Development Kits and Command Line Interface.

Console: To access Notifications using the Console, you must use a supported browser. You can use the Console link at the top of this page to go to the sign-in page. You will be prompted to enter your cloud tenant, your user name, and your password. Open the navigation menu. Under Solutions and Platform, go to Application Integration and click Notifications.

API: To access Notifications through API, use Notifications API.

Administrators: For common policies that give groups access to Notifications, see Allow a group to manage topics, Allow a group to manage topic subscriptions, and Allow a group to publish messages to topics.

See Service Limits for a list of applicable limits and instructions for requesting a limit increase. To set compartment-specific limits on a resource or resource family, administrators can use compartment quotas.