Alerting Documentation

Overview

This document outlines the comprehensive alerting strategy for the Dispatch Center Application, covering alert definitions, escalation procedures, notification channels, and incident response workflows.

Table of Contents

• Alerting Architecture
• Alert Severity Levels
• Alert Categories
• Notification Channels
• Escalation Procedures
• Alert Rules and Thresholds
• On-Call Management
• Alert Fatigue Prevention
• Integration with External Systems
• Alerting Best Practices

Alerting Architecture

flowchart LR
    data_sources["Data Sources<br/>(Metrics, Logs, etc.)"]
    alert_rules["Alert Rules<br/>& Thresholds"]
    alert_manager["Alert Manager<br/>(Azure Monitor)"]
    action_groups["Action Groups<br/>& Routing"]
    notification_channels["Notification Channels<br/>(Teams, SMS, Email, etc.)"]
    external_systems["External Systems<br/>(PagerDuty, ServiceNow)"]

    data_sources --> alert_rules
    alert_rules --> alert_manager
    alert_manager --> action_groups
    action_groups --> notification_channels
    notification_channels --> external_systems

Alert Severity Levels

Severity 1 (Critical) - P1

Response Time: Immediate (< 15 minutes)
Escalation: Automatic after 30 minutes
Business Impact: Service unavailable, data loss risk, security breach

Criteria:

• Complete system outage (application down)
• Database connectivity failure
• Security breach or unauthorized access
• Data corruption or loss
• Payment processing failure
• Critical integration failures (Reach, payment systems)

Examples:

critical_alerts:
  - name: "Application Down"
    condition: "availability < 95% for 5 minutes"
    notification: ["sms", "voice_call", "teams", "email"]

  - name: "Database Connection Failure"
    condition: "database_connections = 0 for 2 minutes"
    notification: ["sms", "voice_call", "teams"]

  - name: "Security Breach Detected"
    condition: "failed_login_attempts > 100 in 5 minutes"
    notification: ["sms", "teams", "security_team"]

Severity 2 (High) - P2

Response Time: < 1 hour
Escalation: Automatic after 2 hours
Business Impact: Major functionality impaired, significant performance degradation

Criteria:

• High error rates (> 5%)
• Severe performance degradation (> 10 second response times)
• Payment processing delays
• Major integration issues
• High queue backlog in Service Bus

Examples:

high_priority_alerts:
  - name: "High Error Rate"
    condition: "error_rate > 5% for 10 minutes"
    notification: ["teams", "email", "mobile_push"]

  - name: "Performance Degradation"
    condition: "avg_response_time > 10000ms for 15 minutes"
    notification: ["teams", "email"]

  - name: "Service Bus Queue Backlog"
    condition: "queue_length > 1000 messages for 20 minutes"
    notification: ["teams", "email"]

Severity 3 (Medium) - P3

Response Time: < 4 hours
Escalation: Manual escalation only
Business Impact: Minor functionality affected, capacity warnings

Criteria:

• Moderate error rates (1-5%)
• Capacity warnings (> 80% utilization)
• Non-critical integration issues
• Performance warnings
• Backup failures

Examples:

medium_priority_alerts:
  - name: "Capacity Warning"
    condition: "cpu_utilization > 80% for 30 minutes"
    notification: ["teams", "email"]

  - name: "Backup Failure"
    condition: "backup_status = failed"
    notification: ["email"]

  - name: "Integration Timeout"
    condition: "external_api_timeout_rate > 10% for 20 minutes"
    notification: ["teams", "email"]

Severity 4 (Low) - P4

Response Time: Next business day
Escalation: None
Business Impact: Informational, trending issues, maintenance notifications

Criteria:

• Information notifications
• Scheduled maintenance reminders
• Trending issues
• Certificate expiration warnings (> 30 days)
• Storage warnings (> 70% utilization)

Examples:

low_priority_alerts:
  - name: "Certificate Expiring Soon"
    condition: "certificate_expiry < 30 days"
    notification: ["email"]

  - name: "Storage Warning"
    condition: "disk_utilization > 70%"
    notification: ["email"]

  - name: "Scheduled Maintenance Reminder"
    condition: "maintenance_window < 24 hours"
    notification: ["email"]

Alert Categories

Infrastructure Alerts

• Server Health: CPU, memory, disk, network utilization
• Network Connectivity: Network latency, packet loss
• Storage: Disk space, I/O performance
• Database: Connection pool, query performance, deadlocks

Application Alerts

• Performance: Response times, throughput, user experience
• Errors: Error rates, exception counts, failed requests
• Availability: Health check failures, endpoint availability
• Business Logic: Service request processing, billing failures

Security Alerts

• Authentication: Failed login attempts, suspicious activity
• Authorization: Privilege escalation attempts, unauthorized access
• Data Protection: Data export anomalies, encryption failures
• Compliance: Audit log failures, policy violations

Business Process Alerts

• Service Requests: SLA violations, backlog alerts
• Technician Management: Scheduling conflicts, availability issues
• Billing: Invoice generation failures, payment processing issues
• Customer Experience: Satisfaction score drops, complaint spikes

Notification Channels

Primary Channels

Microsoft Teams

teams_configuration:
  primary_channel: "#ops-alerts"
  critical_channel: "#critical-alerts"
  security_channel: "#security-alerts"
  business_channel: "#business-alerts"
  webhook_url: "https://outlook.office.com/webhook/..."
  message_format: "adaptive_card"

Email

email_configuration:
  smtp_server: "smtp.office365.com"
  distribution_lists:
    - "ops-team@company.com"
    - "dev-team@company.com"
    - "security-team@company.com"
  template_format: "html"
  include_runbook_links: true

SMS/Voice

sms_configuration:
  provider: "twilio"
  emergency_contacts:
    - "+1-555-0101" # On-call engineer
    - "+1-555-0102" # Backup on-call
    - "+1-555-0103" # Team lead
  voice_escalation: true
  escalation_delay: "15 minutes"

Secondary Channels

Mobile Push Notifications

• Azure Mobile App notifications
• Custom mobile app integration
• Rich notifications with action buttons

Webhook Integrations

• Slack (for external partners)
• Custom ITSM systems
• Third-party monitoring dashboards

Escalation Procedures

Automatic Escalation Matrix

escalation_matrix:
  severity_1:
    level_1: "0 minutes - On-call engineer"
    level_2: "15 minutes - Backup on-call + Team lead"
    level_3: "30 minutes - Manager + Director"
    level_4: "60 minutes - VP Engineering + CTO"

  severity_2:
    level_1: "0 minutes - On-call engineer"
    level_2: "60 minutes - Team lead"
    level_3: "120 minutes - Manager"

  severity_3:
    level_1: "0 minutes - On-call engineer"
    level_2: "240 minutes - Team lead (business hours only)"

  severity_4:
    level_1: "Next business day - Team lead"

Manual Escalation Triggers

• Incident commander request
• Customer escalation
• Regulatory requirement
• Media attention
• Business impact assessment

External Escalation

external_escalation:
  conditions:
    - "severity_1 and duration > 2 hours"
    - "customer_facing and severity_2"
    - "security_incident"

  contacts:
    - "Legal department"
    - "Public relations"
    - "Customer success"
    - "Executive leadership"

Alert Rules and Thresholds

Performance Thresholds

Response Time Alerts

{
  "alert_name": "High Response Time",
  "metric": "avg_response_time",
  "conditions": [
    {
      "threshold": "2000ms",
      "duration": "5 minutes",
      "severity": "warning"
    },
    {
      "threshold": "5000ms", 
      "duration": "5 minutes",
      "severity": "high"
    },
    {
      "threshold": "10000ms",
      "duration": "2 minutes", 
      "severity": "critical"
    }
  ]
}

Error Rate Alerts

{
  "alert_name": "Error Rate Spike",
  "metric": "error_percentage",
  "conditions": [
    {
      "threshold": "1%",
      "duration": "10 minutes",
      "severity": "warning"
    },
    {
      "threshold": "5%",
      "duration": "5 minutes",
      "severity": "high"
    },
    {
      "threshold": "10%",
      "duration": "2 minutes",
      "severity": "critical"
    }
  ]
}

Infrastructure Thresholds

Resource Utilization

resource_alerts:
  cpu_utilization:
    warning: "75% for 15 minutes"
    high: "85% for 10 minutes"
    critical: "95% for 5 minutes"

  memory_utilization:
    warning: "80% for 15 minutes"
    high: "90% for 10 minutes"
    critical: "95% for 5 minutes"

  disk_space:
    warning: "80% utilization"
    high: "90% utilization"
    critical: "95% utilization"

Business Logic Thresholds

Service Request Processing

business_alerts:
  service_request_backlog:
    warning: "50 unassigned requests"
    high: "100 unassigned requests"
    critical: "200 unassigned requests"

  sla_violations:
    warning: "5% SLA miss rate"
    high: "10% SLA miss rate"
    critical: "20% SLA miss rate"

  technician_utilization:
    warning: "< 60% or > 90%"
    high: "< 50% or > 95%"
    critical: "< 40% or > 98%"

On-Call Management

On-Call Schedule

on_call_schedule:
  rotation_type: "weekly"
  handoff_time: "Monday 9:00 AM"
  backup_coverage: "always"

  teams:
    primary:
      - "Engineer A"
      - "Engineer B" 
      - "Engineer C"
      - "Engineer D"

    backup:
      - "Senior Engineer X"
      - "Senior Engineer Y"

  escalation_contacts:
    team_lead: "Lead Engineer"
    manager: "Engineering Manager"
    director: "Director of Engineering"

On-Call Responsibilities

• Monitor alert channels continuously
• Acknowledge alerts within SLA timeframes
• Investigate and resolve incidents
• Escalate when necessary
• Update incident status and communications
• Document resolution steps

On-Call Tools and Access

• VPN access for remote troubleshooting
• Administrative credentials for all systems
• Mobile devices with all notification apps
• Escalation contact information
• Runbook and documentation access

Alert Fatigue Prevention

Alert Tuning Strategies

Threshold Optimization

def optimize_alert_thresholds():
    """
    Analyze historical data to optimize alert thresholds
    """
    # Analyze false positive rates
    false_positive_rate = calculate_false_positives()

    # Adjust thresholds based on historical patterns
    if false_positive_rate > 0.3:  # 30% false positive rate
        increase_thresholds()

    # Implement dynamic thresholds based on time patterns
    apply_time_based_thresholds()

Alert Correlation

• Group related alerts to reduce noise
• Suppress downstream alerts when root cause is identified
• Implement alert dependencies and relationships

Intelligent Alerting

intelligent_alerting:
  machine_learning:
    - "Anomaly detection for baseline deviations"
    - "Pattern recognition for recurring issues"
    - "Predictive alerting for capacity planning"

  context_awareness:
    - "Maintenance window suppression"
    - "Business hours vs after-hours severity"
    - "Seasonal pattern recognition"

Alert Quality Metrics

• Mean Time to Acknowledge (MTTA): Target < 5 minutes for critical
• Mean Time to Resolve (MTTR): Track and improve resolution times
• False Positive Rate: Target < 20% across all alerts
• Alert Volume: Monitor trends and optimize thresholds

Integration with External Systems

PagerDuty Integration

pagerduty_config:
  service_key: "your-service-key"
  routing_key: "your-routing-key"
  severity_mapping:
    critical: "P1"
    high: "P2"
    medium: "P3"
    low: "P4"

  escalation_policies:
    - "Primary On-Call Policy"
    - "Backup Escalation Policy"
    - "Executive Escalation Policy"

ServiceNow Integration

servicenow_config:
  instance_url: "https://company.service-now.com"
  username: "azure_integration"
  table: "incident"

  field_mapping:
    alert_severity: "priority"
    alert_description: "short_description"
    alert_details: "description"
    assigned_to: "assigned_to"

Slack Integration (External Partners)

slack_config:
  webhook_url: "https://hooks.slack.com/services/..."
  channels:
    critical: "#critical-alerts"
    general: "#monitoring"

  message_format:
    include_runbook: true
    include_dashboard_links: true
    enable_thread_updates: true

Alerting Best Practices

Alert Design Principles

1. Actionable: Every alert should require or suggest a specific action
2. Contextual: Include relevant context and troubleshooting information
3. Timely: Alert timing should match business impact urgency
4. Relevant: Alerts should be meaningful to the receiving audience
5. Escalating: Clear escalation path for unacknowledged alerts

Alert Message Templates

Critical Alert Template

🚨 CRITICAL ALERT 🚨
Service: {service_name}
Issue: {alert_description}
Impact: {business_impact}
Started: {start_time}
Runbook: {runbook_link}
Dashboard: {dashboard_link}
Incident ID: {incident_id}

High Priority Alert Template

⚠️ HIGH PRIORITY ALERT
Service: {service_name}
Issue: {alert_description}
Threshold: {threshold_details}
Current Value: {current_value}
Duration: {alert_duration}
Runbook: {runbook_link}

Runbook Integration

• Link to specific troubleshooting procedures
• Include common resolution steps
• Provide escalation contact information
• Reference related documentation

Regular Alert Review Process

alert_review_process:
  frequency: "monthly"
  participants:
    - "DevOps Team"
    - "Development Team"
    - "Product Team"

  review_items:
    - "Alert volume trends"
    - "False positive analysis"
    - "Response time metrics"
    - "Threshold optimization opportunities"
    - "New alerting requirements"

Documentation and Training

• Alert handling procedures
• Escalation contact information
• System access requirements
• Troubleshooting guides
• Regular training sessions for on-call staff

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Document Version: 1.0
Last Updated: January 2026
Next Review: April 2026