User Notifications and AWS Backup Amazon SNS and AWS Backup events

Notification options with AWS Backup

There are two ways to receive notifications about AWS Backup:

User Notifications can send notifications, including Amazon CloudWatch alarms, AWS Support, and other services' notifications.
Amazon Simple Notification Service can notify you of AWS Backup events.

User Notifications and AWS Backup

AWS Backup supports management of your backup notifications from the User Notifications console. With User Notifications, you can view the progress of your backup, copy, and restore jobs and changes to your backup policies, vaults, recovery points, and settings from the User Notifications Notification Center.

Amazon CloudWatch, Amazon EventBridge alarms, and AWS Support case updates are among other types of notifications you can manage from the console. Additionally, you can set up several delivery options, including email, AWS Chatbot notifications, and AWS Console Mobile Application push notifications.

Amazon SNS and AWS Backup events

AWS Backup takes advantage of the robust notifications delivered by Amazon Simple Notification Service (Amazon SNS). You can configure Amazon SNS to notify you of AWS Backup events from the Amazon SNS console.

Limitations

While the Amazon SNS service allows cross-account notifications, AWS Backup does not currently support this feature. You must specify your own AWS account ID and the resource ARN of your topic.
AWS Backup supports Standard topics for SNS best-effort deduplication, but AWS Backup does not currently support SNS FIFO topics for Strict deduplication.

Set up notifications for failed backup jobs by following the steps in How can I get notifications for AWS Backup jobs that failed? from AWS Premium Support.
Review sample Amazon SNS notification JSONs for completed, failed, and expired backup jobs in the Examples of events table below.

For more information about Amazon SNS generally, see Getting Started with Amazon SNS in the Amazon Simple Notification Service Developer Guide.

After creating your topics using the Amazon SNS console or AWS Command Line Interface (AWS CLI), you can use the following AWS Backup API operations to manage your backup notifications.

DeleteBackupVaultNotifications — Deletes event notifications for the specified backup vault.
GetBackupVaultNotifications — Lists all event notifications for the specified backup vault.
PutBackupVaultNotifications — Turns on notifications for the specified topic and events.

AWS Backup supports the following events:

Job type	Event
Backup job	`BACKUP_JOB_STARTED` \| `BACKUP_JOB_COMPLETED` \| `CONTINUOUS_BACKUP_INTERRUPTED`
Copy job	`COPY_JOB_STARTED` \| `COPY_JOB_SUCCESSFUL` \| `COPY_JOB_FAILED`
Restore job	`RESTORE_JOB_STARTED` \| `RESTORE_JOB_COMPLETED`
Recovery point	`RECOVERY_POINT_MODIFIED`

AWS Backup for S3 supports two additional events:

S3_BACKUP_OBJECT_FAILED notifies you of any S3 object that AWS Backup failed to back up during a backup job.
S3_RESTORE_OBJECT_FAILED notifies you of any S3 object that AWS Backup failed to restore during a restore job.

Example: Backup job completed


{
    "Records": [{
        "EventSource": "aws:sns",
        "EventVersion": "1.0",
        "EventSubscriptionArn": "arn:aws:sns:...-a3802aa1ed45",
        "Sns": {
            "Type": "Notification",
            "MessageId": "12345678-abcd-123a-def0-abcd1a234567",
            "TopicArn": "arn:aws:sns:us-west-1:123456789012:backup-2sqs-sns-topic",
            "Subject": "Notification from AWS Backup",
            "Message": "An AWS Backup job was completed successfully. Recovery point ARN: arn:aws:ec2:us-west-1:123456789012:volume/vol-012f345df6789012d. Resource ARN : arn:aws:ec2:us-west-1:123456789012:volume/vol-012f345df6789012e. BackupJob ID : 1b2345b2-f22c-4dab-5eb6-bbc7890ed123",
            "Timestamp": "2019-08-02T18:46:02.788Z",
            ...
            "MessageAttributes": {
                "EventType": {"Type":"String","Value":"BACKUP_JOB"},
                "State": {"Type":"String","Value":"COMPLETED"},
                "AccountId": {"Type":"String","Value":"123456789012"},
                "Id": {"Type":"String","Value":"1b2345b2-f22c-4dab-5eb6-bbc7890ed123"},
                "StartTime": {"Type":"String","Value":"2019-09-02T13:48:52.226Z"}
            }
        }
    }]
}

Example: Backup job failed


{
    "Records": [{
        "EventSource": "aws:sns",
        "EventVersion": "1.0",
        "EventSubscriptionArn": "arn:aws:sns:...-a3802aa1ed45",
        "Sns": {
            "Type": "Notification",
            "MessageId": "12345678-abcd-123a-def0-abcd1a234567",
            "TopicArn": "arn:aws:sns:us-west-1:123456789012:backup-2sqs-sns-topic",
            "Subject": "Notification from AWS Backup",
            "Message": "An AWS Backup job failed. Resource ARN : arn:aws:ec2:us-west-1:123456789012:volume/vol-012f345df6789012e. BackupJob ID : 1b2345b2-f22c-4dab-5eb6-bbc7890ed123",
            "Timestamp": "2019-08-02T18:46:02.788Z",
            ...
            "MessageAttributes": {
                "EventType": {"Type":"String","Value":"BACKUP_JOB"},
                "State": {"Type":"String","Value":"FAILED"},
                "AccountId": {"Type":"String","Value":"123456789012"},
                "Id": {"Type":"String","Value":"1b2345b2-f22c-4dab-5eb6-bbc7890ed123"},
                "StartTime": {"Type":"String","Value":"2019-09-02T13:48:52.226Z"}
            }
        }
    }]
}

Example: Backup job could not complete during the backup window


{
    "Records": [{
        "EventSource": "aws:sns",
        "EventVersion": "1.0",
        "EventSubscriptionArn": "arn:aws:sns:...-a3802aa1ed45",
        "Sns": {
            "Type": "Notification",
            "MessageId": "12345678-abcd-123a-def0-abcd1a234567",
            "TopicArn": "arn:aws:sns:us-west-1:123456789012:backup-2sqs-sns-topic",
            "Subject": "Notification from AWS Backup",
            "Message": "An AWS Backup job failed to complete in time. Resource ARN : arn:aws:ec2:us-west-1:123456789012:volume/vol-012f345df6789012e. BackupJob ID : 1b2345b2-f22c-4dab-5eb6-bbc7890ed123",
            "Timestamp": "2019-08-02T18:46:02.788Z",
            ...
            "MessageAttributes" : {
              "EventType" : {"Type":"String","Value":"BACKUP_JOB"},
              "State" : {"Type":"String","Value":"EXPIRED"},
              "AccountId" : {"Type":"String","Value":"123456789012"},
              "Id" : {"Type":"String","Value":"1b2345b2-f22c-4dab-5eb6-bbc7890ed123"},
              "StartTime" : {"Type":"String","Value":"2019-09-02T13:48:52.226Z"}
            }
        }
    }]
}

You can use AWS CLI commands to subscribe to, list, and delete Amazon SNS notifications for your AWS Backup events.

Example put backup vault notification

The following command subscribes to an Amazon SNS topic for the specified backup vault that notifies you when a restore job is started or completed, or when a recovery point is modified.


aws backup put-backup-vault-notifications 
    --backup-vault-name myBackupVault 
    --sns-topic-arn arn:aws:sns:region:account-id:myBackupTopic
    --backup-vault-events RESTORE_JOB_STARTED RESTORE_JOB_COMPLETED RECOVERY_POINT_MODIFIED

Example get backup vault notification

The following command lists all events currently subscribed to an Amazon SNS topic for the specified backup vault.


aws backup get-backup-vault-notifications 
    --backup-vault-name myVault

The sample output is as follows:


{
    "SNSTopicArn": "arn:aws:sns:region:account-id:myBackupTopic",
    "BackupVaultEvents": [
        "RESTORE_JOB_STARTED",
        "RESTORE_JOB_COMPLETED",
        "RECOVERY_POINT_MODIFIED"
    ],
    "BackupVaultName": "myVault",
    "BackupVaultArn": "arn:aws:backup:region:account-id:backup-vault:myVault"
}

Example delete backup vault notification

The following command unsubscribes from an Amazon SNS topic for the specified backup vault.


aws backup delete-backup-vault-notifications 
    --backup-vault-name myVault

Specifying AWS Backup as a service principal

Note

To allow AWS Backup to publish SNS topics on your behalf, you must specify AWS Backup as a service principal.

Include the following JSON in the access policy of the Amazon SNS topic that you use to track AWS Backup events. You must specify the resource Amazon Resource Name (ARN) of your topic.


{
      "Sid": "My-statement-id",
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Principal": {
        "Service": "backup.amazonaws.com"
      },
      "Action": "SNS:Publish",
      "Resource": "arn:aws:sns:region:account-id:myTopic"
}

For more information about specifying a service principal in an Amazon SNS access policy, see Allowing Any AWS Resource to Publish to a Topic in the Amazon Simple Notification Service Developer Guide.

Note

If your topic is encrypted, you must include additional permissions in your policy to allow AWS Backup to publish to it. For more information about enabling services to publish to encrypted topics, see Enable Compatibility between Event Sources from AWS Services and Encrypted Topics in the Amazon Simple Notification Service Developer Guide.

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Document Conventions

Logging AWS Backup API calls with CloudTrail

Troubleshooting AWS Backup

Notification options with AWS Backup

User Notifications and AWS Backup

Amazon SNS and AWS Backup events

Limitations

Common use cases

AWS Backup notification APIs

Examples of events

Example: Backup job completed

Example: Backup job failed

Example: Backup job could not complete during the backup window

AWS Backup notification command examples

Example put backup vault notification

Example get backup vault notification

Example delete backup vault notification

Specifying AWS Backup as a service principal

Note

Note