AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell
Command Reference

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Synopsis

Calls the Amazon CloudWatch PutMetricAlarm API operation.

Syntax

Write-CWMetricAlarm
-AlarmName <String>
-AlarmDescription <String>
-ActionsEnabled <Boolean>
-AlarmAction <String[]>
-ComparisonOperator <ComparisonOperator>
-DatapointsToAlarm <Int32>
-Dimension <Dimension[]>
-EvaluateLowSampleCountPercentile <String>
-EvaluationPeriod <Int32>
-ExtendedStatistic <String>
-InsufficientDataAction <String[]>
-MetricName <String>
-Metric <MetricDataQuery[]>
-Namespace <String>
-OKAction <String[]>
-Period <Int32>
-Statistic <Statistic>
-Tag <Tag[]>
-Threshold <Double>
-ThresholdMetricId <String>
-TreatMissingData <String>
-Unit <StandardUnit>
-Select <String>
-PassThru <SwitchParameter>
-Force <SwitchParameter>
-ClientConfig <AmazonCloudWatchConfig>

Description

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 Amazon Web Services Management Console, the 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 Amazon Web Services 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.

Parameters

-ActionsEnabled <Boolean>
Indicates whether actions should be executed during any changes to the alarm state. The default is TRUE.
Required?False
Position?Named
Accept pipeline input?True (ByPropertyName)
-AlarmAction <String[]>
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
Required?False
Position?Named
Accept pipeline input?True (ByPropertyName)
AliasesAlarmActions
-AlarmDescription <String>
The description for the alarm.
Required?False
Position?2
Accept pipeline input?True (ByPropertyName)
-AlarmName <String>
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
Required?True
Position?1
Accept pipeline input?True (ByValue, ByPropertyName)
-ClientConfig <AmazonCloudWatchConfig>
Amazon.PowerShell.Cmdlets.CW.AmazonCloudWatchClientCmdlet.ClientConfig
Required?False
Position?Named
Accept pipeline input?True (ByPropertyName)
-ComparisonOperator <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, and GreaterThanUpperThreshold are used only for alarms based on anomaly detection models.
Required?True
Position?Named
Accept pipeline input?True (ByPropertyName)
-DatapointsToAlarm <Int32>
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.
Required?False
Position?Named
Accept pipeline input?True (ByPropertyName)
-Dimension <Dimension[]>
The dimensions for the metric specified in MetricName.
Required?False
Position?Named
Accept pipeline input?True (ByPropertyName)
AliasesDimensions
-EvaluateLowSampleCountPercentile <String>
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 specify evaluate 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
Required?False
Position?Named
Accept pipeline input?True (ByPropertyName)
-EvaluationPeriod <Int32>
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.
Required?True
Position?Named
Accept pipeline input?True (ByPropertyName)
AliasesEvaluationPeriods
-ExtendedStatistic <String>
The extended statistic for the metric specified in MetricName. When you call PutMetricAlarm and specify a MetricName, you must specify either Statistic or ExtendedStatistic 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.
Required?False
Position?Named
Accept pipeline input?True (ByPropertyName)
-Force <SwitchParameter>
This parameter overrides confirmation prompts to force the cmdlet to continue its operation. This parameter should always be used with caution.
Required?False
Position?Named
Accept pipeline input?True (ByPropertyName)
-InsufficientDataAction <String[]>
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
Required?False
Position?Named
Accept pipeline input?True (ByPropertyName)
AliasesInsufficientDataActions
-Metric <MetricDataQuery[]>
An array of MetricDataQuery structures that enable you to create an alarm based on the result of a metric math expression. For each PutMetricAlarm operation, you must specify either MetricName or a Metrics 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 setting ReturnData to true for this object in the array. For more information, see MetricDataQuery.If you use the Metrics parameter, you cannot include the Namespace, MetricName, Dimensions, Period, Unit, Statistic, or ExtendedStatistic parameters of PutMetricAlarm in the same operation. Instead, you retrieve the metrics you are using in your math expression as part of the Metrics array.
Required?False
Position?Named
Accept pipeline input?True (ByPropertyName)
AliasesMetrics
-MetricName <String>
The name for the metric associated with the alarm. For each PutMetricAlarm operation, you must specify either MetricName or a Metrics 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, or ExtendedStatistic parameters. Instead, you specify all this information in the Metrics array.
Required?False
Position?Named
Accept pipeline input?True (ByPropertyName)
-Namespace <String>
The namespace for the metric associated specified in MetricName.
Required?False
Position?Named
Accept pipeline input?True (ByPropertyName)
-OKAction <String[]>
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
Required?False
Position?Named
Accept pipeline input?True (ByPropertyName)
AliasesOKActions
-PassThru <SwitchParameter>
Changes the cmdlet behavior to return the value passed to the AlarmName parameter. The -PassThru parameter is deprecated, use -Select '^AlarmName' instead. This parameter will be removed in a future version.
Required?False
Position?Named
Accept pipeline input?True (ByPropertyName)
-Period <Int32>
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 the Metrics array.Be sure to specify 10 or 30 only for metrics that are stored by a PutMetricData call with a StorageResolution 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 by EvaluationPeriods cannot be more than 86,400 seconds.
Required?False
Position?Named
Accept pipeline input?True (ByPropertyName)
-Select <String>
Use the -Select parameter to control the cmdlet output. The cmdlet doesn't have a return value by default. Specifying -Select '*' will result in the cmdlet returning the whole service response (Amazon.CloudWatch.Model.PutMetricAlarmResponse). Specifying -Select '^ParameterName' will result in the cmdlet returning the selected cmdlet parameter value.
Required?False
Position?Named
Accept pipeline input?True (ByPropertyName)
-Statistic <Statistic>
The statistic for the metric specified in MetricName, other than percentile. For percentile statistics, use ExtendedStatistic. When you call PutMetricAlarm and specify a MetricName, you must specify either Statistic or ExtendedStatistic, but not both.
Required?False
Position?Named
Accept pipeline input?True (ByPropertyName)
-Tag <Tag[]>
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.
Required?False
Position?Named
Accept pipeline input?True (ByPropertyName)
AliasesTags
-Threshold <Double>
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.
Required?False
Position?Named
Accept pipeline input?True (ByPropertyName)
-ThresholdMetricId <String>
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.
Required?False
Position?Named
Accept pipeline input?True (ByPropertyName)
-TreatMissingData <String>
Sets how this alarm is to handle missing data points. If TreatMissingData is omitted, the default behavior of missing is used. For more information, see Configuring How CloudWatch Alarms Treats Missing Data.Valid Values: breaching | notBreaching | ignore | missingAlarms that evaluate metrics in the AWS/DynamoDB namespace always ignore missing data even if you choose a different option for TreatMissingData. When an AWS/DynamoDB metric has missing data, alarms that evaluate that metric remain in their current state.
Required?False
Position?Named
Accept pipeline input?True (ByPropertyName)
-Unit <StandardUnit>
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 the INSUFFICIENT DATA state.
Required?False
Position?Named
Accept pipeline input?True (ByPropertyName)

Common Credential and Region Parameters

-AccessKey <String>
The AWS access key for the user account. This can be a temporary access key if the corresponding session token is supplied to the -SessionToken parameter.
Required?False
Position?Named
Accept pipeline input?True (ByPropertyName)
AliasesAK
-Credential <AWSCredentials>
An AWSCredentials object instance containing access and secret key information, and optionally a token for session-based credentials.
Required?False
Position?Named
Accept pipeline input?True (ByValue, ByPropertyName)
-EndpointUrl <String>
The endpoint to make the call against.Note: This parameter is primarily for internal AWS use and is not required/should not be specified for normal usage. The cmdlets normally determine which endpoint to call based on the region specified to the -Region parameter or set as default in the shell (via Set-DefaultAWSRegion). Only specify this parameter if you must direct the call to a specific custom endpoint.
Required?False
Position?Named
Accept pipeline input?True (ByPropertyName)
-NetworkCredential <PSCredential>
Used with SAML-based authentication when ProfileName references a SAML role profile. Contains the network credentials to be supplied during authentication with the configured identity provider's endpoint. This parameter is not required if the user's default network identity can or should be used during authentication.
Required?False
Position?Named
Accept pipeline input?True (ByValue, ByPropertyName)
-ProfileLocation <String>
Used to specify the name and location of the ini-format credential file (shared with the AWS CLI and other AWS SDKs)If this optional parameter is omitted this cmdlet will search the encrypted credential file used by the AWS SDK for .NET and AWS Toolkit for Visual Studio first. If the profile is not found then the cmdlet will search in the ini-format credential file at the default location: (user's home directory)\.aws\credentials.If this parameter is specified then this cmdlet will only search the ini-format credential file at the location given.As the current folder can vary in a shell or during script execution it is advised that you use specify a fully qualified path instead of a relative path.
Required?False
Position?Named
Accept pipeline input?True (ByPropertyName)
AliasesAWSProfilesLocation, ProfilesLocation
-ProfileName <String>
The user-defined name of an AWS credentials or SAML-based role profile containing credential information. The profile is expected to be found in the secure credential file shared with the AWS SDK for .NET and AWS Toolkit for Visual Studio. You can also specify the name of a profile stored in the .ini-format credential file used with the AWS CLI and other AWS SDKs.
Required?False
Position?Named
Accept pipeline input?True (ByPropertyName)
AliasesStoredCredentials, AWSProfileName
-Region <Object>
The system name of an AWS region or an AWSRegion instance. This governs the endpoint that will be used when calling service operations. Note that the AWS resources referenced in a call are usually region-specific.
Required?False
Position?Named
Accept pipeline input?True (ByPropertyName)
AliasesRegionToCall
-SecretKey <String>
The AWS secret key for the user account. This can be a temporary secret key if the corresponding session token is supplied to the -SessionToken parameter.
Required?False
Position?Named
Accept pipeline input?True (ByPropertyName)
AliasesSK, SecretAccessKey
-SessionToken <String>
The session token if the access and secret keys are temporary session-based credentials.
Required?False
Position?Named
Accept pipeline input?True (ByPropertyName)
AliasesST

Outputs

None or Amazon.CloudWatch.Model.PutMetricAlarmResponse
This cmdlet does not generate any output.The service response (type Amazon.CloudWatch.Model.PutMetricAlarmResponse) can be referenced from properties attached to the cmdlet entry in the $AWSHistory stack.
Developer Guide
Service API Reference
AWS Tools for PowerShell User Guide

Supported Version

AWS Tools for PowerShell: 2.x.y.z