Chapter 1. Introduction to Red Hat Hybrid Cloud Console notifications and integrations
Through the notifications service, Red Hat Hybrid Cloud Console services have a standardized way of notifying users of events. By setting up behavior groups, a Notifications administrator specifies the notification delivery method and whether event notifications are sent to all users on an account, specific users, or only to Organization Administrators.
For example, the Notifications administrator can configure the service to send an email notification for new-recommendation hits on a system. Similarly, the Notifications administrator might decide to trigger a notification that sends a message to a third-party application using the webhook integration type.
An Organization Administrator designates Notifications administrators by creating a User Access group with the Notifications administrator role, then adding account members to the group. A Notifications administrator then configures notification behavior groups that define actions taken when service-specific events occur.
The notifications service transmits event-triggered notifications to users’ email accounts or to third-party applications using webhooks. Users on the Hybrid Cloud Console account set their own preferences for receiving email notifications. In Settings > Notifications > Notification preferences, each user configures their personal settings to receive event notification emails as an instant notification or daily digest.
Selecting Instant notification for any service can cause the recipient to receive a very large number of emails.
1.1. Hybrid Cloud Console notification and integration concepts
Review key concepts to understand how the notifications service works:
| Concept | Description |
|---|---|
| Actions | Operations are performed in response to an event. Examples include sending an email or forwarding a notification to an integration endpoint. Actions are defined in behavior groups that are configured by a Notifications administrator. |
| Application bundle | Application bundle refers to an application group within the Hybrid Cloud Console, such as Red Hat Enterprise Linux or OpenShift. |
| Behavior groups | Behavior groups determine what actions to take when an event occurs, and whether to notify all account users or only designated administrators. After a Notifications administrator creates a behavior group, they associate it with event types which enables Notifications administrators to apply the same actions to all application-specific events. NOTE: Notifications administrators configure notification behavior groups separately for each application bundle. |
| Email preferences | Individual users with access to applications on the Hybrid Cloud Console set their personal email preferences. Users can configure personal email notifications to arrive either instantly, as the event occurs, or consolidated into a daily digest that arrives at midnight, 00:00 Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), for all accounts. IMPORTANT: Selecting instant notification for any service can potentially result in the recipient receiving a very large number of emails. |
| Event type | Event types are application-specific system changes that trigger the application or service to initiate notification actions. Event types are created by application developers at Red Hat and are unique for each application bundle. |
| Integrations | Integrations define the method of delivery of notifications configured by the Notifications administrator. After integrations are configured, the notifications service sends the HTTP POST messages to endpoints. |
| User access roles | The following User Access roles interact with notifications: * Organization Administrator * Notifications administrator * Notifications viewer |
1.2. Hybrid Cloud Console notifications methods
You can use the following methods to integrate the Hybrid Cloud Console into your organization’s workflows:
- Hybrid Cloud Console APIs
- Webhooks or emails, or both, directly to users
- Integrations with a third-party application, such as Splunk
Hybrid Cloud Console APIs
Hybrid Cloud Console APIs are publicly available and can be queried from any authenticated client (role-based access controlled).
Webhooks
Webhooks work in a similar way to APIs, except that they enable one-way data sharing when events trigger them. APIs share data in both directions. Applications that allow inbound data requests are said to have exposed webhooks.
You can configure the Hybrid Cloud Console to send POST messages to specific endpoints in exposed webhooks within applications. This capability works with the notifications service. For example, you can configure the Hybrid Cloud Console to automatically email new Advisor recommendations to selected administrator accounts as soon as the Hybrid Cloud Console identifies them.
After you configure the endpoints in the notifications service, you can subscribe to a stream of Hybrid Cloud Console events and automatically forward that stream to the webhooks of your choice. Each event contains additional metadata, which you can use to process the event, for example, to perform specific actions or trigger responses, as part of your operational workflow. You configure the implementation and data handling within your application.
Third-party application integrations
You can use Hybrid Cloud Console third-party application integrations in two ways, depending on your use case:
- Use Hybrid Cloud Console APIs to collect data and perform tasks.
- Subscribe to streams of Hybrid Cloud Console events.
You can use Hybrid Cloud Console integrations to forward events to specific third-party applications. The Red Hat Insights application for Splunk forwards selected Hybrid Cloud Console events to Splunk. This allows you to view and use data from Hybrid Cloud Console in your existing workflows from the Red Hat Insights application for Splunk dashboard.
Additional resources
- For more information about the available endpoints for applications and services, refer to the Hybrid Cloud Console API documentation.
- For an example of CSV-formatted API responses, see the System Comparison API Documentation.
- For examples to help you to get started quickly with authentication and with querying API endpoints, see Red Hat Insights API cheat sheet.
- For more information about how to configure and use webhooks, refer to Configure integrations.
- For information about security, see Red Hat Insights Data and Application Security.
- For more information about integrating third-party applications, see Integrating the Red Hat Hybrid Cloud Console with third-party applications.
