What thresholds should I use for my monitors?

up.time does not generally recommend default thresholds for service monitors because thresholds are usually specific to application or server configuration, operational SLAs and/or performance targets.  To determine appropriate thresholds for your environment, we recommend collecting data, establishing a baseline and setting thresholds based on exceptional conditions.  The following general procedure describes this process:

• Edit your service monitor.
• Select the Retain or Save for Graphing option beside the metric you wish to threshold.  This will enable up.time to save the value for future graphing each time the monitor runs.
• Let your service monitor run for a suitable period.  One week is typically sufficient to establish a reasonable baseline.
• Use the Service Monitor Metrics report to display your saved values and analyze results to determine accurate thresholds for your monitor.  Alternatively, if you do not want to wait for a complete baseline period, use the Test Service Instance option on your service monitor to run a live monitor test.  This test will display all returned results at the current moment, which you can then use to estimate thresholds.