PutMetricAlarm
Creates or updates an alarm and associates it with the specified metric, metric math expression, anomaly detection model, or Metrics Insights query. For more information about using a Metrics Insights query for an alarm, see Create alarms on Metrics Insights queries.
Alarms based on anomaly detection models cannot have Auto Scaling actions.
When this operation creates an alarm, the alarm state is immediately set to
INSUFFICIENT_DATA
. The alarm is then evaluated and its state is set
appropriately. Any actions associated with the new state are then executed.
When you update an existing alarm, its state is left unchanged, but the update completely overwrites the previous configuration of the alarm.
If you are an IAM user, you must have Amazon EC2 permissions for some alarm operations:
-
The
iam:CreateServiceLinkedRole
permission for all alarms with EC2 actions -
The
iam:CreateServiceLinkedRole
permissions to create an alarm with Systems Manager OpsItem or response plan actions.
The first time you create an alarm in the AWS Management Console, the AWS CLI, or by using the PutMetricAlarm API, CloudWatch creates the necessary
service-linked role for you. The service-linked roles are called
AWSServiceRoleForCloudWatchEvents
and
AWSServiceRoleForCloudWatchAlarms_ActionSSM
. For more information, see
AWS service-linked role.
Each PutMetricAlarm
action has a maximum uncompressed payload of 120
KB.
Cross-account alarms
You can set an alarm on metrics in the current account, or in another account. To create a cross-account alarm that watches a metric in a different account, you must have completed the following pre-requisites:
-
The account where the metrics are located (the sharing account) must already have a sharing role named CloudWatch-CrossAccountSharingRole. If it does not already have this role, you must create it using the instructions in Set up a sharing account in Cross-account cross-Region CloudWatch console. The policy for that role must grant access to the ID of the account where you are creating the alarm.
-
The account where you are creating the alarm (the monitoring account) must already have a service-linked role named AWSServiceRoleForCloudWatchCrossAccount to allow CloudWatch to assume the sharing role in the sharing account. If it does not, you must create it following the directions in Set up a monitoring account in Cross-account cross-Region CloudWatch console.
Request Parameters
For information about the parameters that are common to all actions, see Common Parameters.
- ActionsEnabled
-
Indicates whether actions should be executed during any changes to the alarm state. The default is
TRUE
.Type: Boolean
Required: No
- AlarmActions.member.N
-
The actions to execute when this alarm transitions to the
ALARM
state from any other state. Each action is specified as an Amazon Resource Name (ARN). Valid values:EC2 actions:
-
arn:aws:automate:region:ec2:stop
-
arn:aws:automate:region:ec2:terminate
-
arn:aws:automate:region:ec2:reboot
-
arn:aws:automate:region:ec2:recover
-
arn:aws:swf:region:account-id:action/actions/AWS_EC2.InstanceId.Stop/1.0
-
arn:aws:swf:region:account-id:action/actions/AWS_EC2.InstanceId.Terminate/1.0
-
arn:aws:swf:region:account-id:action/actions/AWS_EC2.InstanceId.Reboot/1.0
-
arn:aws:swf:region:account-id:action/actions/AWS_EC2.InstanceId.Recover/1.0
Autoscaling action:
-
arn:aws:autoscaling:region:account-id:scalingPolicy:policy-id:autoScalingGroupName/group-friendly-name:policyName/policy-friendly-name
Lambda actions:
-
Invoke the latest version of a Lambda function:
arn:aws:lambda:region:account-id:function:function-name
-
Invoke a specific version of a Lambda function:
arn:aws:lambda:region:account-id:function:function-name:version-number
-
Invoke a function by using an alias Lambda function:
arn:aws:lambda:region:account-id:function:function-name:alias-name
SNS notification action:
-
arn:aws:sns:region:account-id:sns-topic-name
SSM integration actions:
-
arn:aws:ssm:region:account-id:opsitem:severity#CATEGORY=category-name
-
arn:aws:ssm-incidents::account-id:responseplan/response-plan-name
Type: Array of strings
Array Members: Maximum number of 5 items.
Length Constraints: Minimum length of 1. Maximum length of 1024.
Required: No
-
- AlarmDescription
-
The description for the alarm.
Type: String
Length Constraints: Minimum length of 0. Maximum length of 1024.
Required: No
- AlarmName
-
The name for the alarm. This name must be unique within the Region.
The name must contain only UTF-8 characters, and can't contain ASCII control characters
Type: String
Length Constraints: Minimum length of 1. Maximum length of 255.
Required: Yes
- ComparisonOperator
-
The arithmetic operation to use when comparing the specified statistic and threshold. The specified statistic value is used as the first operand.
The values
LessThanLowerOrGreaterThanUpperThreshold
,LessThanLowerThreshold
, andGreaterThanUpperThreshold
are used only for alarms based on anomaly detection models.Type: String
Valid Values:
GreaterThanOrEqualToThreshold | GreaterThanThreshold | LessThanThreshold | LessThanOrEqualToThreshold | LessThanLowerOrGreaterThanUpperThreshold | LessThanLowerThreshold | GreaterThanUpperThreshold
Required: Yes
- DatapointsToAlarm
-
The number of data points that must be breaching to trigger the alarm. This is used only if you are setting an "M out of N" alarm. In that case, this value is the M. For more information, see Evaluating an Alarm in the Amazon CloudWatch User Guide.
Type: Integer
Valid Range: Minimum value of 1.
Required: No
- Dimensions.member.N
-
The dimensions for the metric specified in
MetricName
.Type: Array of Dimension objects
Array Members: Maximum number of 30 items.
Required: No
- EvaluateLowSampleCountPercentile
-
Used only for alarms based on percentiles. If you specify
ignore
, the alarm state does not change during periods with too few data points to be statistically significant. If you specifyevaluate
or omit this parameter, the alarm is always evaluated and possibly changes state no matter how many data points are available. For more information, see Percentile-Based CloudWatch Alarms and Low Data Samples.Valid Values:
evaluate | ignore
Type: String
Length Constraints: Minimum length of 1. Maximum length of 255.
Required: No
- EvaluationPeriods
-
The number of periods over which data is compared to the specified threshold. If you are setting an alarm that requires that a number of consecutive data points be breaching to trigger the alarm, this value specifies that number. If you are setting an "M out of N" alarm, this value is the N.
An alarm's total current evaluation period can be no longer than one day, so this number multiplied by
Period
cannot be more than 86,400 seconds.Type: Integer
Valid Range: Minimum value of 1.
Required: Yes
- ExtendedStatistic
-
The extended statistic for the metric specified in
MetricName
. When you callPutMetricAlarm
and specify aMetricName
, you must specify eitherStatistic
orExtendedStatistic
but not both.If you specify
ExtendedStatistic
, the following are valid values:-
p90
-
tm90
-
tc90
-
ts90
-
wm90
-
IQM
-
PR(n:m)
where n and m are values of the metric -
TC(X%:X%)
where X is between 10 and 90 inclusive. -
TM(X%:X%)
where X is between 10 and 90 inclusive. -
TS(X%:X%)
where X is between 10 and 90 inclusive. -
WM(X%:X%)
where X is between 10 and 90 inclusive.
For more information about these extended statistics, see CloudWatch statistics definitions.
Type: String
Required: No
-
- InsufficientDataActions.member.N
-
The actions to execute when this alarm transitions to the
INSUFFICIENT_DATA
state from any other state. Each action is specified as an Amazon Resource Name (ARN). Valid values:EC2 actions:
-
arn:aws:automate:region:ec2:stop
-
arn:aws:automate:region:ec2:terminate
-
arn:aws:automate:region:ec2:reboot
-
arn:aws:automate:region:ec2:recover
-
arn:aws:swf:region:account-id:action/actions/AWS_EC2.InstanceId.Stop/1.0
-
arn:aws:swf:region:account-id:action/actions/AWS_EC2.InstanceId.Terminate/1.0
-
arn:aws:swf:region:account-id:action/actions/AWS_EC2.InstanceId.Reboot/1.0
-
arn:aws:swf:region:account-id:action/actions/AWS_EC2.InstanceId.Recover/1.0
Autoscaling action:
-
arn:aws:autoscaling:region:account-id:scalingPolicy:policy-id:autoScalingGroupName/group-friendly-name:policyName/policy-friendly-name
Lambda actions:
-
Invoke the latest version of a Lambda function:
arn:aws:lambda:region:account-id:function:function-name
-
Invoke a specific version of a Lambda function:
arn:aws:lambda:region:account-id:function:function-name:version-number
-
Invoke a function by using an alias Lambda function:
arn:aws:lambda:region:account-id:function:function-name:alias-name
SNS notification action:
-
arn:aws:sns:region:account-id:sns-topic-name
SSM integration actions:
-
arn:aws:ssm:region:account-id:opsitem:severity#CATEGORY=category-name
-
arn:aws:ssm-incidents::account-id:responseplan/response-plan-name
Type: Array of strings
Array Members: Maximum number of 5 items.
Length Constraints: Minimum length of 1. Maximum length of 1024.
Required: No
-
- MetricName
-
The name for the metric associated with the alarm. For each
PutMetricAlarm
operation, you must specify eitherMetricName
or aMetrics
array.If you are creating an alarm based on a math expression, you cannot specify this parameter, or any of the
Namespace
,Dimensions
,Period
,Unit
,Statistic
, orExtendedStatistic
parameters. Instead, you specify all this information in theMetrics
array.Type: String
Length Constraints: Minimum length of 1. Maximum length of 255.
Required: No
- Metrics.member.N
-
An array of
MetricDataQuery
structures that enable you to create an alarm based on the result of a metric math expression. For eachPutMetricAlarm
operation, you must specify eitherMetricName
or aMetrics
array.Each item in the
Metrics
array either retrieves a metric or performs a math expression.One item in the
Metrics
array is the expression that the alarm watches. You designate this expression by settingReturnData
to true for this object in the array. For more information, see MetricDataQuery.If you use the
Metrics
parameter, you cannot include theNamespace
,MetricName
,Dimensions
,Period
,Unit
,Statistic
, orExtendedStatistic
parameters ofPutMetricAlarm
in the same operation. Instead, you retrieve the metrics you are using in your math expression as part of theMetrics
array.Type: Array of MetricDataQuery objects
Required: No
- Namespace
-
The namespace for the metric associated specified in
MetricName
.Type: String
Length Constraints: Minimum length of 1. Maximum length of 255.
Pattern:
[^:].*
Required: No
- OKActions.member.N
-
The actions to execute when this alarm transitions to an
OK
state from any other state. Each action is specified as an Amazon Resource Name (ARN). Valid values:EC2 actions:
-
arn:aws:automate:region:ec2:stop
-
arn:aws:automate:region:ec2:terminate
-
arn:aws:automate:region:ec2:reboot
-
arn:aws:automate:region:ec2:recover
-
arn:aws:swf:region:account-id:action/actions/AWS_EC2.InstanceId.Stop/1.0
-
arn:aws:swf:region:account-id:action/actions/AWS_EC2.InstanceId.Terminate/1.0
-
arn:aws:swf:region:account-id:action/actions/AWS_EC2.InstanceId.Reboot/1.0
-
arn:aws:swf:region:account-id:action/actions/AWS_EC2.InstanceId.Recover/1.0
Autoscaling action:
-
arn:aws:autoscaling:region:account-id:scalingPolicy:policy-id:autoScalingGroupName/group-friendly-name:policyName/policy-friendly-name
Lambda actions:
-
Invoke the latest version of a Lambda function:
arn:aws:lambda:region:account-id:function:function-name
-
Invoke a specific version of a Lambda function:
arn:aws:lambda:region:account-id:function:function-name:version-number
-
Invoke a function by using an alias Lambda function:
arn:aws:lambda:region:account-id:function:function-name:alias-name
SNS notification action:
-
arn:aws:sns:region:account-id:sns-topic-name
SSM integration actions:
-
arn:aws:ssm:region:account-id:opsitem:severity#CATEGORY=category-name
-
arn:aws:ssm-incidents::account-id:responseplan/response-plan-name
Type: Array of strings
Array Members: Maximum number of 5 items.
Length Constraints: Minimum length of 1. Maximum length of 1024.
Required: No
-
- Period
-
The length, in seconds, used each time the metric specified in
MetricName
is evaluated. Valid values are 10, 30, and any multiple of 60.Period
is required for alarms based on static thresholds. If you are creating an alarm based on a metric math expression, you specify the period for each metric within the objects in theMetrics
array.Be sure to specify 10 or 30 only for metrics that are stored by a
PutMetricData
call with aStorageResolution
of 1. If you specify a period of 10 or 30 for a metric that does not have sub-minute resolution, the alarm still attempts to gather data at the period rate that you specify. In this case, it does not receive data for the attempts that do not correspond to a one-minute data resolution, and the alarm might often lapse into INSUFFICENT_DATA status. Specifying 10 or 30 also sets this alarm as a high-resolution alarm, which has a higher charge than other alarms. For more information about pricing, see Amazon CloudWatch Pricing. An alarm's total current evaluation period can be no longer than one day, so
Period
multiplied byEvaluationPeriods
cannot be more than 86,400 seconds.Type: Integer
Valid Range: Minimum value of 10.
Required: No
- Statistic
-
The statistic for the metric specified in
MetricName
, other than percentile. For percentile statistics, useExtendedStatistic
. When you callPutMetricAlarm
and specify aMetricName
, you must specify eitherStatistic
orExtendedStatistic,
but not both.Type: String
Valid Values:
SampleCount | Average | Sum | Minimum | Maximum
Required: No
- Tags.member.N
-
A list of key-value pairs to associate with the alarm. You can associate as many as 50 tags with an alarm. To be able to associate tags with the alarm when you create the alarm, you must have the
cloudwatch:TagResource
permission.Tags can help you organize and categorize your resources. You can also use them to scope user permissions by granting a user permission to access or change only resources with certain tag values.
If you are using this operation to update an existing alarm, any tags you specify in this parameter are ignored. To change the tags of an existing alarm, use TagResource or UntagResource.
To use this field to set tags for an alarm when you create it, you must be signed on with both the
cloudwatch:PutMetricAlarm
andcloudwatch:TagResource
permissions.Type: Array of Tag objects
Required: No
- Threshold
-
The value against which the specified statistic is compared.
This parameter is required for alarms based on static thresholds, but should not be used for alarms based on anomaly detection models.
Type: Double
Required: No
- ThresholdMetricId
-
If this is an alarm based on an anomaly detection model, make this value match the ID of the
ANOMALY_DETECTION_BAND
function.For an example of how to use this parameter, see the Anomaly Detection Model Alarm example on this page.
If your alarm uses this parameter, it cannot have Auto Scaling actions.
Type: String
Length Constraints: Minimum length of 1. Maximum length of 255.
Required: No
- TreatMissingData
-
Sets how this alarm is to handle missing data points. If
TreatMissingData
is omitted, the default behavior ofmissing
is used. For more information, see Configuring How CloudWatch Alarms Treats Missing Data.Valid Values:
breaching | notBreaching | ignore | missing
Note
Alarms that evaluate metrics in the
AWS/DynamoDB
namespace alwaysignore
missing data even if you choose a different option forTreatMissingData
. When anAWS/DynamoDB
metric has missing data, alarms that evaluate that metric remain in their current state.Type: String
Length Constraints: Minimum length of 1. Maximum length of 255.
Required: No
- Unit
-
The unit of measure for the statistic. For example, the units for the Amazon EC2 NetworkIn metric are Bytes because NetworkIn tracks the number of bytes that an instance receives on all network interfaces. You can also specify a unit when you create a custom metric. Units help provide conceptual meaning to your data. Metric data points that specify a unit of measure, such as Percent, are aggregated separately. If you are creating an alarm based on a metric math expression, you can specify the unit for each metric (if needed) within the objects in the
Metrics
array.If you don't specify
Unit
, CloudWatch retrieves all unit types that have been published for the metric and attempts to evaluate the alarm. Usually, metrics are published with only one unit, so the alarm works as intended.However, if the metric is published with multiple types of units and you don't specify a unit, the alarm's behavior is not defined and it behaves unpredictably.
We recommend omitting
Unit
so that you don't inadvertently specify an incorrect unit that is not published for this metric. Doing so causes the alarm to be stuck in theINSUFFICIENT DATA
state.Type: String
Valid Values:
Seconds | Microseconds | Milliseconds | Bytes | Kilobytes | Megabytes | Gigabytes | Terabytes | Bits | Kilobits | Megabits | Gigabits | Terabits | Percent | Count | Bytes/Second | Kilobytes/Second | Megabytes/Second | Gigabytes/Second | Terabytes/Second | Bits/Second | Kilobits/Second | Megabits/Second | Gigabits/Second | Terabits/Second | Count/Second | None
Required: No
Errors
For information about the errors that are common to all actions, see Common Errors.
- LimitExceeded
-
The quota for alarms for this customer has already been reached.
HTTP Status Code: 400
Examples
Static Threshold Alarm
The following example creates an alarm that notifies an SNS group when the CPUUtilization of a certain instance goes over 40% for three out of four periods.
Sample Request
{
"Namespace": "AWS/EC2",
"MetricName": "CPUUtilization",
"Dimensions": [
{
"Name": "InstanceId",
"Value": "i-1234567890abcdef0"
}
],
"AlarmActions": [
"arn:aws:sns:us-west-1:123456789012:my_sns_topic"
],
"ComparisonOperator": "GreaterThanThreshold",
"DatapointsToAlarm": 3,
"EvaluationPeriods": 4,
"Period": 60,
"Statistic": "Average",
"Threshold": 40,
"AlarmDescription": "CPU Utilization of i-1234567890abcdef0 with 40% as threshold",
"AlarmName": "Instance i-1234567890abcdef0 CPU Utilization"
}
Metric Math Function Alarm
The following example retrieves three metrics that each track a different type of connection error to a custom service. These error counts are first summed in one expression, then divided by total connection attempts in another expression. The alarm goes to the ALARM state if the error rate is over 3% for two consecutive periods, and notifies two different SNS groups.
Sample Request
{
"AlarmActions": [
"arn:aws:sns:us-west-1:123456789012:my_sns_topic",
"arn:aws:sns:us-west-1:123456789012:my_other_sns_topic"
],
"ComparisonOperator": "GreaterThanThreshold",
"EvaluationPeriods": 3,
"Threshold": 40,
"AlarmDescription": "MyService Aggregate Connection Error Rate (Alarm at 3%)",
"AlarmName": "MyService Connection Error Rate",
"Metrics": [
{
"MetricStat": {
"Metric": {
"MetricName": "ConnectionsFailed",
"Namespace": "MyService"
},
"Period": 60,
"Stat": "Sum"
},
"Id": "m1",
"ReturnData": "False"
},
{
"MetricStat": {
"Metric": {
"MetricName": "ConnectionsDropped",
"Namespace": "MyService"
},
"Period": 60,
"Stat": "Sum"
},
"Id": "m2",
"ReturnData": "False"
},
{
"MetricStat": {
"Metric": {
"MetricName": "RequestsThrottled",
"Namespace": "MyService"
},
"Period": 60,
"Stat": "Sum"
},
"Id": "m3",
"ReturnData": "False"
},
{
"MetricStat": {
"Metric": {
"MetricName": "ConnectionAttempts",
"Namespace": "MyService"
},
"Period": 60,
"Stat": "Sum"
},
"Id": "m4",
"ReturnData": "False"
},
{
"Id": "error_total",
"Expression": "m1+m2+m3",
"ReturnData": "False"
},
{
"Id": "error_rate",
"Expression": "(error_total/m4)*100",
"ReturnData": "true",
"Label": "Total Connection Error Rate"
}
]
}
Anomaly Detection Model Alarm
The following example sets an alarm on an anomaly detection model. The Id
of m1
is assigned to the CPUUtilization
metric of an
instance. t1
is the anomaly detection model function for that
metric, and uses 3 standard deviations to set the width of the band. The setting
of ThresholdMetricId
is t1
and the
ComparisonOperator
is
LessThanLowerOrGreaterThanUpperThreshold
, specifying that the
alarm goes to alarm state when the metric value is outside the anomaly model
band in either direction for two consecutive evaluation periods.
Sample Request
{
"AlarmActions": [
"arn:aws:sns:us-west-1:123456789012:my_sns_topic",
"arn:aws:sns:us-west-1:123456789012:my_other_sns_topic"
],
"AlarmName": "MyAlarmName",
"AlarmDescription": "This alarm uses an anomaly detection model",
"Metrics": [
{
"Id": "m1",
"ReturnData": true,
"MetricStat": {
"Metric": {
"MetricName": "CPUUtilization",
"Namespace": "AWS/EC2",
"Dimensions": [
{
"Name": "instanceId",
"Value": "i-1234567890abcdef0"
}
]
},
"Stat": "Average",
"Period": 60
}
},
{
"Id": "t1",
"Expression": "ANOMALY_DETECTION_BAND(m1, 3)"
}
],
"EvaluationPeriods": 2,
"ThresholdMetricId": "t1",
"ComparisonOperator": "LessThanLowerOrGreaterThanUpperThreshold"
}
Metrics Insights query alarm
The following example sets an alarm on an Metrics Insights query.
Sample Request
{
"AlarmActions": [
"arn:aws:sns:us-west-1:123456789012:my_sns_topic",
"arn:aws:sns:us-west-1:123456789012:my_other_sns_topic"
],
"AlarmName": "MetricsInsightsAlarm",
"AlarmDescription": "This alarm uses a Metrics Insights query",
"Metrics": [
{
"Id": "m1",
"Expression": "SELECT AVG(CPUUtilization) FROM SCHEMA("AWS/EC2", InstanceId)",
"Period": 60,
"Label": "Average CPUUtilization query"
}
],
"EvaluationPeriods": 1,
"Threshold": 65,
"ComparisonOperator": "GreaterThanThreshold"
}
See Also
For more information about using this API in one of the language-specific AWS SDKs, see the following: