Alerting docs: Introduction - brief overview of notification messages. (#95987)

* Intro: simplify `Architecture`. Add a new guideline

* Define `Notification policies` as an advanced option

* Intro: include about "Notification messages"

* Minor copy changes

docs/sources/alerting/fundamentals/_index.md

@@ -13,6 +13,11 @@ menuTitle: Introduction
 title: Introduction to Alerting
 weight: 100
 refs:
+  notifications:
+    - pattern: /docs/grafana/
+      destination: /docs/grafana/<GRAFANA_VERSION>/alerting/fundamentals/notifications/
+    - pattern: /docs/grafana-cloud/
+      destination: /docs/grafana-cloud/alerting-and-irm/alerting/fundamentals/notifications/
   notification-policies:
     - pattern: /docs/grafana/
       destination: /docs/grafana/<GRAFANA_VERSION>/alerting/fundamentals/notifications/notification-policies/
@@ -105,11 +110,15 @@ A rule using the PromQL expression above creates as many alert instances as the
 
 [Contact points](ref:contact-points) determine the notification message and where notifications are sent. For example, you might have a contact point that sends notifications to an email address, to Slack, to an incident management system (IRM) such as Grafana OnCall or Pagerduty, or to a webhook.
 
+### Notification messages
+
+By default, notification messages include alert details, such as the number of alerts, their status, and annotations to help responders address alert issues. Notification messages can also be customized.
+
 In the alert rule, you can choose a contact point to receive the alert notifications or use notification policies instead.
 
 ### Notification policies
 
-[Notification policies](ref:notification-policies) provide a flexible method to handle alert notifications for larger systems.
+[Notification policies](ref:notification-policies) is an advanced option to handle alert notifications for larger systems.
 
 Notification policies routes alerts to contact points via label matching. Each notification policy consists of a set of label matchers (0 or more) that specify which alert instances (identified by their labels) they handle. Notification policies are defined in a tree structure, where the root of the notification policy tree is the **Default notification policy**, which ensures all alert instances are handled.
 
@@ -129,12 +138,8 @@ Each notification policy decides where to send the alert (contact point) and whe
 
 Grafana Alerting is built on the Prometheus model of designing alerting systems. Prometheus-based alerting systems have two main components:
 
-- An alert generator that evaluates alert rules and sends firing and resolved alerts to the alert receiver.
-- An alert receiver (also known as Alertmanager) that receives the alerts and is responsible for handling them and sending their notifications.
-
-Grafana Alerting doesn’t use Prometheus as its default alert generator because it works with many other data sources; not just Prometheus.
-
-However, Grafana can also use Prometheus as an alert generator (refer to [alert rule types](ref:alert-rules)), as well as external Alertmanagers.
+- An alert generator that [evaluates alert rules](ref:alert-rule-evaluation) and sends firing and resolved alerts to the alert receiver.
+- An alert receiver (also known as Alertmanager) that receives the alerts and is responsible for sending their [notifications](ref:notifications).
 
 ## Design your Alerting system
 
@@ -147,23 +152,23 @@ Here are some tips on how to create an effective alert management set up for you
 **Which are the key metrics for your business that you want to monitor and alert on?**
 
 - Find events that are important to know about and not so trivial or frequent that recipients ignore them.
-
 - Alerts should only be created for big events that require immediate attention or intervention.
-
 - Consider quality over quantity.
 
-**Which type of Alerting do you want to use?**
-
-- Choose between Grafana-managed Alerting or Grafana Mimir or Loki-managed Alerting; or both.
-
 **How do you want to organize your alerts and notifications?**
 
-- Be selective about who you set to receive alerts. Consider sending them to whoever is on call or a specific Slack channel.
-- Automate as far as possible using the Alerting API or alerts as code (Terraform).
+- Be selective about who you set to receive alerts. Consider sending them to the right teams, whoever is on call, and the specific channels.
+- Think carefully about priority and severity levels.
+- Automate as far as possible provisioning Alerting resources with the API or Terraform.
+
+**Which information should you include in notifications?**
+
+- Consider who the alert receivers and responders are.
+- Share information that helps responders identify and address potential issues.
+- Link alerts to dashboards to guide responders on which data to investigate.
 
 **How can you reduce alert fatigue?**
 
 - Avoid noisy, unnecessary alerts by using silences, mute timings, or pausing alert rule evaluation.
 - Continually tune your alert rules to review effectiveness. Remove alert rules to avoid duplication or ineffective alerts.
-- Think carefully about priority and severity levels.
 - Continually review your thresholds and evaluation rules.

docs/sources/alerting/fundamentals/notifications/_index.md

@@ -84,7 +84,9 @@ Start defining your [contact points](ref:contact-points) to specify how to recei
 
 [Contact points](ref:contact-points) contain the configuration for sending alert notifications, specifying destinations like email, Slack, OnCall, webhooks, and their notification messages.
 
-A contact point is a list of integrations, each sending a message to a specific destination. They allow the customization of notification messages and the use of notification templates.
+A contact point is a list of integrations, each sending a message to a specific destination.
+
+By default, notification messages include common alert details, such as the number of alerts, alert names, labels, annotations, and other alert information. You can also customize notification messages and use notification templates.
 
 First, create the contact point and test the notifications. Then, configure the alert rule to send its notifications to either a contact point or through Notification Policies.