---
name: containers-status-bps
title: Monitoring status best practices
description: To create a plan and stay informed, use the following best practices for monitoring the status of IBM Cloud®. Ongoing incidents or planned maintenance windows that impact a finite set of accounts do not display on the Status page. The notifications for those events are published only to the customer Notifications page.
last-updated: 2026-04-17
---

> ## Documentation Index
> The table of contents for this documentation set is at https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/containers?format=markdown
> The index for all IBM Cloud docs is at: https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/llms.txt
> Use these files to discover more information as needed.

# Monitoring status best practices
{: #best-practices}

To create a plan and stay informed, use the following best practices for monitoring the status of IBM Cloud®. Ongoing incidents or planned maintenance windows that impact a finite set of accounts do not display on the Status page. The notifications for those events are published only to the customer [Notifications page](https://cloud.ibm.com/notifications){: external}.
{: shortdesc}

## Check for upcoming maintenance windows
{: #monbp-checmaintwin}

Check for upcoming maintenance windows posted on the IBM Cloud console Dashboard page, at least one time every 24 hours, by using one of the following options:

* Check out the Planned maintenance widget on the [Dashboard](https://cloud.ibm.com){: external}, and click **View events** to view all planned maintenance.
* Go directly to the [Status - Planned maintenance page](https://cloud.ibm.com/status?selected=maintenance){: external}.

## Check for current maintenance windows or an incident in progress
{: #monbp-checcurmaninprog}

If you suspect that IBM Cloud isn't functioning as expected, check the Status page for current maintenance windows or an incident in progress. To report an incident that isn't already listed on the Status page, open a support case. For more information about opening a support case, see [Creating support cases](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/support?topic=support-open-case&format=markdown).

In most cases, IBM Cloud can be used normally during a maintenance window. However, minor interruptions of a service can't always be avoided. Running applications typically remain available even if the application management functions, such as starting and stopping apps, are temporarily interrupted. To maximize the availability of your running applications, run at least three instances of each application.

## Take advantage of multiple IBM Cloud locations
{: #monbp-multpreg}

All users of IBM Cloud automatically have access to the Dallas, London, Frankfurt, Sydney, Washington DC, and Tokyo locations. The IBM Cloud Global Operations team manages all locations to avoid maintenance impacts and minimize the risk of incidents that affect all locations at the same time.

You can check the status of your locations from the dashboard on the IBM Cloud status widget. To view specific events, click **View all**.

## Subscribing to email notifications
{: #monbp-subscribing}

As a Lite account owner, you can select whether to receive email notifications about IBM Cloud platform unplanned events, such as outages, and planned events, such as maintenance. As a Pay-As-You-Go or Subscription account, you can choose whether to receive IBM Cloud infrastructure email notifications about unplanned events, maintenance, and announcements. For more information, see [Setting email preferences for notifications](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/support?topic=support-email-prefs&format=markdown).