Documentationbreadcrumb arrow Pluginsbreadcrumb arrow Amazon Aurorabreadcrumb arrow Alerting
Grafana Cloud Enterprise
Last reviewed: July 23, 2026

Amazon Aurora alerting

You can use the Amazon Aurora data source to create Grafana alert rules that evaluate SQL queries and trigger notifications when conditions are met. This lets you monitor your Aurora data for anomalies, thresholds, or specific conditions without manually watching dashboards.

For general information about Grafana alerting, refer to Grafana Alerting.

Before you begin

Create an alert rule

To create an alert rule using an Aurora query:

  1. Click Alerting in the left-side menu. In Grafana Cloud, it’s under Alerts & IRM.
  2. Click Alert rules.
  3. Click New alert rule.
  4. Enter a name for the alert rule.
  5. Select your Amazon Aurora data source.
  6. Write an SQL query that returns numeric data.
  7. Define the alert condition using expressions. For example, reduce the query result to a single value and set a threshold.
  8. Configure labels, notifications, and other alert settings.
  9. Click Save rule and exit.

Alert query requirements

Alert queries must meet the following requirements:

  • The query must return at least one numeric column. Grafana evaluates numeric values against the alert condition.
  • Use the $__timeFilter macro to restrict results to the evaluation time window.
  • Keep queries efficient. Alert rules evaluate at regular intervals, and slow queries can delay alert evaluation.
  • Don’t use template variables in alert queries. Grafana Alerting doesn’t support template variable interpolation. Use hard-coded values instead.

Example threshold alert

The following query returns the average temperature over the evaluation window:

SQL 
select avg(temperature) as avg_temperature
from weather_readings
where $__timeFilter(recorded_at)

Apply a threshold condition in the expression builder, for example to fire when avg_temperature exceeds 35.

Example alert per group

To receive a separate alert instance per category, include a grouping column and set Format data frames as to Table. Grafana treats string columns as labels, so each city becomes its own alert instance:

SQL 
select city, avg(temperature) as avg_temperature
from weather_readings
where $__timeFilter(recorded_at)
group by city

Example data freshness alert

To alert when a table stops receiving data, count recent rows and fire when the count drops to zero:

SQL 
select count(*) as reading_count
from weather_readings
where $__timeFilter(recorded_at)

Set the condition to fire when reading_count is below 1.

Considerations

Keep the following in mind when using Aurora queries in alert rules:

  • Database load: Each alert evaluation runs a query directly against your cluster. Set evaluation intervals that balance responsiveness with database load, and consider pointing the data source at the reader endpoint so evaluations don’t affect your writer instance.
  • Authentication token refresh: RDS authentication tokens expire after 15 minutes. When a token expires, the plugin generates a new one and retries the query once, which can occasionally add latency to an evaluation.
  • Permissions: The database user configured in the data source must have read access to all tables and schemas referenced in alert queries.

Next steps