Functions

This section describes main functions of SMN. You can check if a certain function is available in a region on the management console.

Billing

SMN is billed based on downstream Internet traffic and notification messages.

The billing modes for each notification type are as follows:

SMS: The number of SMS notifications sent
Email: The number of email notifications plus downstream Internet traffic
HTTP or HTTPS: The number of HTTP or HTTPS requests plus downstream Internet traffic

Topics

A topic is a specified event to publish messages and subscribe to notifications. It serves as a message sending channel, where publishers and subscribers can interact with each other.

After a topic is created, the system generates a topic URN, which uniquely identifies the topic and cannot be changed. The topic you created is displayed in the topic list.

Subscriptions

A subscription is how you add endpoints to a topic. To deliver messages published to a topic to endpoints, you must add the subscription endpoints to the topic. Endpoints can be email addresses, phone numbers, and HTTP/HTTPS URLs. After you add endpoints to the topic and the subscribers confirm the subscription, they are able to receive messages published to the topic.

You can add multiple subscriptions to each topic. After you add a subscription, SMN sends a confirmation message to the subscription endpoint. The message contains a link for confirming the subscription. The subscription confirmation link is valid within 48 hours. Confirm the subscription on your mobile phone, mailbox, or other endpoints in time.

Subscribers

A subscription is how you add endpoints to a topic. On the Subscribers page, you can centrally manage subscriber information across regions. You can create multiple subscribers and batch subscribe them to a topic.

Currently, subscriber data can be stored and viewed only in regions in China.

Message Templates

Message templates contain fixed and changeable content and can be used to create and send messages more quickly. When you use a template to publish a message, you can specify values for different variables in the template.

Message templates are identified by name, but you can create different templates with the same name as long as they are configured for different protocols. You must create a Default template with the same name as each custom template. The Default template is used when no specific template has been set for a given protocol. If a template is configured for a specific protocol, any subscriber who chose that protocol during subscription will receive messages using that specific template. If you create a custom template but do not create a default template with the same name, you cannot use the custom template to publish messages.

Publishing a Message

SMN enables you to publish messages in the following formats:

Text
JSON
Template

After you publish a message to a topic, SMN will deliver the message to all confirmed subscription endpoints in the topic.

If an SMS message exceeds 490 characters, the message may be intercepted by operators. Messages sent to SMS endpoints cannot contain square brackets ([]).

For HTTP or HTTPS endpoints, you must ensure that firewall policies have been enabled for them to allow SMN to send messages over the Internet. SMN automatically assembles messages. The message you receive consists of a message header and a body. For details about parameters, see HTTP or HTTPS Message Format.

Receiving a Message

When you subscribe to a topic, you can specify a protocol. Messages received by each endpoint vary depending on the selected protocol. The available protocols are as follows:

Email
The system sends notifications to the email address you provide. Email messages contain the message subject, content, and a link to unsubscribe.

SMS
The system sends text messages to mobile phones. SMS messages only contain the message content.

Enterprise Project

SMN supports enterprise projects. An enterprise project facilitates project-level management and grouping of cloud resources and users.

Permissions

You can use Identity and Access Management (IAM) for fine-grained permissions control for your SMN resources. With IAM, you can:

Create IAM users for personnel based on your enterprise's organizational structure. Each IAM user has their own identity credentials for accessing SMN resources.
Grant only the permissions required for users to perform a specific task.
Entrust a Huawei Cloud account or a cloud service to perform efficient O&M on your SMN resources.

Quota Adjustment

All cloud service resources have quotas to prevent unforeseen spikes in resource usage. Quotas can limit the number and capacity of resources available to users, such as the maximum number of ECSs or EVS disks that can be created.

You can also request for an increase in quota if the existing quota does not meet your service requirements.

Auditing Key Operations

Cloud Trace Service (CTS) records operations on cloud resources in your account. You can use the logs to perform security analysis, track resource changes, audit compliance, and locate faults.

Once CTS is enabled, it starts recording SMN operations. You can view the operation records of the last 7 days on the CTS management console.