The Issue

When configuring a VMware Cloud on AWS (VMC) SDDC vCenter, Administrators trying to use the vCenter Alerts email feature find they cannot complete the configuration, as the necessary options such as setting email server settings are greyed out.

Thanks to Bilal Ahmed for discussing this issue with me, so we could find a solution.

The Cause

Today this feature is not supported in VMware Cloud on AWS

• https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/78871

The Workaround

By creating the vCenter Alert, even if it triggers to alert a placeholder email address. This will generate a vCenter event which is captured by vRealize Log Insight Cloud (vRLIC), the offering which is included with VMC (the freemium version included with VMC will sufficed for the workaround).

Within vRealize Log Insight you can generate an email alert from a query.

Obviously, a full monitoring suite is where you should be really heading for these types of information gathering and notifications such as vRealize Operations Cloud. However, this will suffice as a workaround where that option is not possible.

The vRealize Log Insight Cloud collects and analyzes logs generated in your SDDC.

A trial version of the vRealize Log Insight Cloud add-on is enabled by default in a new SDDC. The trial period begins when a user in your organization accesses the vRealize Log Insight Cloud add-on and expires in thirty days. After the trial period, you can choose to subscribe to this service or continue to use a subset of service features at no additional cost. 
Source

Example – Datastore Usage

You can do this for any vCenter Alarm type, but I am using datastore usage space as an example

• First, we will create the vCenter Alarm

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