
## Table of Contents

1. [Introduction](#introduction)
2. [Requirements](#requirements)
3. [Use Correct GCP Project](#use-correct-gcp-project)
4. [Create Alerting Policy for Pub/Sub Topic](#create-alerting-policy-for-pubsub-topic)
5. [Create Alerting Policy for Failed Scheduled Queries](#create-alerting-policy-for-failed-scheduled-queries)
6. [Conclusion](#conclusion)

## Introduction

This blog shows how to create monitoring alerts with GCP and provides a few examples.

## Requirements

- Have a GCP account
- Already downloaded and set up gcloud

## Use Correct GCP Project

Run the `gcloud config list` command to check whether the current account or project is the correct one for your GCP project.

```
gcloud  config list
```

In case the GCP project is not the correct one, run `gcloud init` and follow the steps to set the correct GCP project.

```
gcloud init
```

## Create Alerting Policy for Pub/Sub Topic

The task here is: for some reason we want to know whenever a Pub/Sub topic gets published, and we want to receive an email as well.

We'll create a GCP monitoring policy for a specific Pub/Sub topic by using a PowerShell command.
The parameters `$topic` and `$project` can be replaced with your own project settings. The idea here is to monitor a specific Pub/Sub topic, and if any message has been published, then the `--if=>0` condition kicks in and will send a notification.

```PowerShell
$filter = 'resource.type = \"pubsub_topic\" AND (resource.labels.topic_id = \"{topic}\" AND resource.labels.project_id = \"{project}\") AND metric.type = \"pubsub.googleapis.com/topic/send_request_count\"';
$aggregation = '{"alignmentPeriod": "300s","perSeriesAligner": "ALIGN_MEAN"}';
$filter = $filter -replace "{topic}", $topic
$filter = $filter -replace "{project}", $project
$conditionName = "Condition - " + $topic;
$displayName = "Display Name - " + $topic;
$document = "Failed!" + $topic;
$channel = 123456; // replace with your notification channel id.

gcloud alpha monitoring policies create --if='> 0' --condition-filter=$filter --aggregation=$aggregation --duration='0s' --condition-display-name=$conditionName --notification-channels=$channel --combiner='OR' --enabled --trigger-count=1 --display-name=$displayName --documentation=$document
```

## Create Alerting Policy for Failed Scheduled Queries

Here, we want to send a notification when scheduled queries fail.
First is the filter — here we use the metric to watch the scheduled query and check if the state is FAILED.

```PowerShell
$filter = 'resource.type = \"bigquery_dts_config\" AND metric.type = \"bigquerydatatransfer.googleapis.com/transfer_config/completed_runs\" AND metric.labels.completion_state = \"FAILED\"';
$aggregation = '{"alignmentPeriod": "300s","perSeriesAligner": "ALIGN_MEAN"}';
$conditionName = "Condition Name";
$displayName = "Display Name";
$document = "Failed!";
$channel = 123456; // replace with your notification channel id.

gcloud alpha monitoring policies create --if='> 0' --condition-filter=$filter --aggregation=$aggregation --duration='0s' --condition-display-name=$conditionName --notification-channels=$channel --combiner='OR' --enabled --trigger-count=1 --display-name=$displayName --documentation=$document
```

## Conclusion

GCP Monitoring alerts are a powerful way to stay informed about your cloud infrastructure. By creating alerting policies for Pub/Sub topics and BigQuery scheduled queries, you can quickly detect and respond to issues in your GCP environment.


This blog shows how to create monitoring alerts with GCP and provides a few examples.

Scheduled Queries

How to create GCP Monitoring Alert