Creating an alert

When you create an alert, you specify the alert type, define the events that trigger an alert, and attach a notifier list containing details about the stakeholders or systems that IBM® NS1 Connect® sends notifications to.

Before you begin

Make sure that you have the permissions and features for the type of alert that you want to create:

Table 1. Permissions and features required for each type of alert
Type of alert Permissions required
Account usage
  • Manage notifier lists

Your plan type must include the feature that you are creating an alert for; for example, Managed DNS for China or Pulsar. The amount of resources available depends on your plan type. You can view your plan type and usage limits on the Usage page.
SAML certificate expiration
  • Manage notifier lists
  • Manage users

Your plan type must also include the single sign on (SSO) feature and SSO must be enabled on your account. Refer to Single sign-on (SSO) for more information.

URL redirects certificate expiration
  • Manage notifier lists
  • Manage redirects
Incoming zone transfer
  • Manage notifier lists
  • Manage zones
  • View zones

About this task

When you create an alert, you can either create a notifier list that contains the stakeholders and notification channels or you can select an existing list. For example, if no list exists and you want to send notifications through email and Slack, you create a list that includes the email of the recipient and the Slack channel when you create an alert. Whereas if you already have a list with the particular email and Slack channel, you can attach that list when you create an alert. Any notifier lists that were created for other alerts, including those for monitoring alerts, are available for you to choose from. You can add multiple notifer lists to an alert.

You can create alerts so that NS1 Connect sends notifications in any of the following events:

  • Your resource usage reaches a certain percentage of your plan limit
  • Your SAML certificate for single sign-on (SSO) is expiring or has already expired
  • Your SSL/TLS certificate for URL redirects is expiring
  • Issues with incoming zone transfers

For descriptions of the alerts that you can create, refer to Types of alerts.

Procedure

Open the Alerts feature
  1. Click Alerts.
  2. On the Alerts tab, click Create alert.
    If you want to create usage alerts, you also have the option of clicking Set usage alerts when you're on the Usage page.
  3. In Alert name, enter a unique name to describe the alert.
    Do not include special characters.
Alerts for account usage
  1. To create alerts to notify stakeholders or systems when your account reaches a certain limit in the amount of resources used, complete the following steps:
    1. From the Alert type drop-down list, select Account.
    2. From the Event type drop-down list, select the type of usage that you want to create an alert for.
    3. Enter a percentage of your plan limit that your usage can reach before NS1 Connect sends a notification.
    You can create more than one alert for the same resource, but with different thresholds if you want to receive alerts at different periods for the same resource.
Alerts for expiration of SAML certificates for SSO
  1. To create an alert to notify stakeholders or systems when your SAML certificate is expiring, complete the following steps:
    1. From the Alert type drop-down list, select Account.
    2. From the Event type drop-down list, select Account SSO certificate is about to expire or has expired.
Alerts for expiration of SSL/TLS certificates for URL redirects
  1. To create an alert to notify stakeholders or systems when your SSL/TLS certificate for URL redirects is expiring, complete the following steps:
    1. From the Alert type drop-down list, select Redirects.
    2. From the Event type drop-down list, select One or more of your SSL/TLS certificates are about to expire.
Alerts for zone transfer issues
  1. To create alerts to notify stakeholders or systems about issues with incoming zone transfers, in Alert type, select Zone, and select the event that triggers an alert and for which secondary zones:
    • To create an alert to notify stakeholders or systems each time a transfer to a secondary zone fails, from the Event type drop-down list, select Incoming zone transfer failed.
    • To create an alert to notify stakeholders or systems each time a primary server can't be reached, from the Event type drop-down list, select Issue with an external primary.
Attach lists of stakeholders or systems
  1. In Notifier lists, attach a list that contains the stakeholders or systems to send notifications to by doing one of the following:
    • If a list of stakeholders or systems that you want to use exists, select it from the Notifier list(s) drop-down list.
    • If you want a new list of stakeholders or sytems, click Create list. Refer to Create a notifier list for information about creating a new list of recipients.
  2. Click Create alert.