Setting up push notifications for public AWS Health events

Introduction

Teams that operate on AWS want service health information to arrive where they already work. A platform engineer that monitors a Slack channel benefits from real-time alerts. An on-call responder that uses the AWS Console Mobile Application needs push notifications. A cloud operations lead that reviews email needs a summary. All three team members benefit from knowing when AWS posts a public health event that touches their services and AWS Regions.

Note: This post provides general guidance. Verify configurations in your own environment. AWS services are subject to the AWS Customer Agreement.

Solution overview

AWS Health publishes public events to the AWS Health Dashboard and delivers the events to the channels that your teams choose. Because operational needs vary widely across organizations, you opt-in to this delivery. You also choose the services and Regions that are relevant to your work, the teams that AWS Health informs, and the channels that the teams monitor. This configuration gives you control over both who receives the events and how many event messages you receive.

Teams that don't set up notifications for public events don't know when an AWS service team sends a public health event to AWS Health.

AWS User Notifications uses a configuration to deliver public AWS Health events to email, chat channels, and mobile devices. You define the configuration once, and User Notifications applies it across your AWS accounts. You can use the AWS SDK, User Notifications API, or the User Notifications console to create the event rules. The following implementation guide uses the console.

Note: AWS plans to launch a simplified native setup experience within AWS managed notifications in User Notifications.

Solution implementation

Prerequisites

Make sure that you meet the following requirements:

• You have an active AWS account.

• You have the necessary AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) permissions for User Notifications. For lists of permissions, see Actions and Resource-level permissions in AWS User Notifications.

• Configure Amazon Q Developer to deliver notifications to your Slack workspace or Microsoft Teams channel.

• Set up and sign in to Console Mobile Application to use mobile push notifications.

Create a notification configuration

To receive public health events, you must create a notification configuration. You can use the User Notifications console, the AWS SDK, or the CreateNotificationConfiguration API.

To use the console to create a notification configuration, complete the following steps:

1. Open the User Notifications console.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Notification configurations, and then choose Create notification configuration.

3. Enter a Name and an optional Description.

4. Select an account.
   Note: Public events apply to all accounts in the affected Region. Your account choice doesn’t limit coverage.

5. In the Event rules section, under AWS service name, enter Health and select it as the AWS service. For Event type, choose Specific Health events.

6. Select each Region that you must monitor. To capture global events, include US East (N. Virginia).

7. In the Advanced filter field, add an event pattern in JSON format. To filter for public events, change the eventScopeCode value to PUBLIC. Add other AWS Health events schema fields as needed.
   Important: In the details parameter of the JSON event pattern, it’s a best practice to keep the value for the service schema field empty. When you filter for a specific service, you receive notifications only when AWS identifies the service as the primary cause of the event. However, the filter doesn’t trigger when the event affects the service downstream or when a public event affects multiple services. Public health events occur infrequently.

8. Under Aggregation settings, choose how frequently you want to receive notifications. It’s a best practice to choose Receive within 5 minutes.
   Note: The aggregation setting provides a consolidated summary of each event rather than individual messages for each event update.

9. In the Delivery channels section, select the channels where you want the notifications to be sent.
   Note: It's a best practice to send public health event notifications to chat channels rather than through email. You might not receive email event notifications in the order that the public health events occur. You can also create separate configurations that route to different channels for different audiences.

10. Choose Create notification configuration.
    Note: Even if you don't select a delivery channel, you can still view your notifications on the User Notifications console.

The AWS Event Management team frequently updates public health events. You receive notifications each time AWS updates the public health event.

Cleanup

User Notifications doesn’t incur additional charges for notification configurations. To stop notifications, delete your notification configuration on the console.

Next steps

Review the notification history on the User Notifications console to confirm that your configuration delivers notifications as expected.

You don't need to create public event rules in every account. Public events target all accounts in the affected Region. One notification configuration in a single account, with relevant Regions selected, covers your entire organization.

Conclusion

Public AWS Health events tell you when an AWS service issue affects the Regions that your workloads run in. With one notification configuration, you scope events to the relevant Regions, filter for public events, aggregate updates into a single summary for each event, and deliver them to the chat channels, mobile devices, and email lists that your teams already monitor. One configuration in one account covers your entire organization. This setup is the current path to receive public health event notifications. AWS is planning to launch a simplified native setup experience for this capability. To learn more about how our plans and offerings can help you get the most out of your AWS environment, see AWS Support.

About the author

King Yip is a Senior Product Manager at AWS. He specializes in helping enterprise customers adopt AWS Health and route event notifications into the email, ticketing, and operational workflows their teams already use. He has over 12 years of product management experience focused on enterprise adoption. King is passionate about helping customers accelerate time to value and use their data more intelligently as AI expands what automation can do. Outside of work, King enjoys learning about culture through food and photography.