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.

Friendly formatting: Select friendly formatting to increase human readability of messages.

Supported subscription protocols:

• Email

Supported message types:

• Alarm messages

  See alarm message examples and steps to select friendly formatting for existing alarms.

• Service connector messages (when Notifications is the target service)

  See service connector message examples and steps to select friendly formatting for existing service connectors.

notification

A configuration for sending messages, such as an alarm or event rule. Each message is sent to subscriptions in the specified topic.

The following types of notifications are available:

• Contextual notification: Created from a quick start template or focused options that are relevant to the given resource.

  For instructions with a compute instance, see Setting Up Contextual Notifications for an Instance.

• Traditional notification: Created from a supported integration point.

  Example scenarios for traditional notifications include automatically resizing VMs, sending alarm messages to Slack and SMS, and filing Jira tickets for reminders.

After creating the notification, you can manage it as usual. For example, if the notification is an alarm, manage it using the Alarms page in the Console.

subscription

An endpoint for a topic. Published messages are sent to each subscription for a topic.

Supported subscription protocols:

• Email:

  Sends an email message when you publish a message  to the subscription's parent topic .

  Note
  
  Follow best practices for integrating with Email Delivery. See Maintain a Positive Email Sender Reputation and Set Up Custom Domains for Email.

  Message contents and appearance vary by message type. See alarm messages, event messages, and service connector messages.

  Some message types allow friendly formatting.

• Function:
  Runs the specified function when you publish a message  to the subscription's parent topic . For example, runs a function to resize VMs when an associated alarm is triggered.
• HTTPS (Custom URL):

  Sends specified information when you publish a message  to the subscription's parent topic .

• PagerDuty:
  Creates a PagerDuty incident by default when you publish a message  to the subscription's parent topic .
• Slack:
  Sends a message to the specified Slack channel by default when you publish a message  to the subscription's parent topic .

  Message contents and appearance vary by message type. See alarm messages, event messages, and service connector messages.
• SMS:
  Sends a text message using Short Message Service (SMS) to the specified phone number when you publish a message  to the subscription's parent topic . Supported endpoint formats: E.164 format.

  Note
  
  

  International SMS capabilities are required if SMS messages come from a phone number in another country. We continuously add support for more countries so that more users can receive SMS messages from local phone numbers.

  SMS subscriptions are enabled only for messages sent by the following Oracle Cloud Infrastructure services: Monitoring, Service Connector Hub. SMS messages sent by unsupported services are dropped. Troubleshoot dropped messages.

  The Notifications service delivers SMS messages from a preconfigured pool of numbers. You might receive SMS messages from multiple numbers.

  Message contents and appearance vary by message type. See alarm messages, event messages, and service connector messages.

  Available Countries and Regions

  You can use Notifications to send SMS messages to the following countries and regions:

  Country or region	ISO code
  Australia	AU
  Brazil	BR
  Canada	CA
  Chile	CL
  China	CN
  Costa Rica	CR
  Croatia	HR
  Czechia	CZ
  France	FR
  Germany	DE
  Hungary	HU
  India	IN
  Ireland	IE
  Israel	IL
  Japan	JP
  Lithuania	LT
  Mexico	MX
  Netherlands	NL
  New Zealand	NZ
  Norway	NO
  Philippines	PH
  Poland	PL
  Portugal	PT
  Romania	RO
  Saudi Arabia	SA
  Singapore	SG
  South Africa	ZA
  South Korea	KR
  Spain	ES
  Sweden	SE
  Switzerland	CH
  Ukraine	UA
  United Arab Emirates	AE
  United Kingdom	GB
  United States	US

topic

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

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

Event rules

Notifications sends event messages when rules are triggered. The event 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.

Service connectors

Notifications sends service connector messages when service connectors  are running. The service connector message is sent to the topic  specified in the service connector. For example, a service connector might be configured to send usage logs. See Managing Service Connectors.

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 Notifications 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. To go to the Console sign-in page, open the navigation menu at the top of this page and click Infrastructure Console. You are prompted to enter your cloud tenant, your user name, and your password. Open the navigation menu and click Developer Services. Under Application Integration, click Notifications.

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

CLI: See Command Line Reference for Notifications.

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.