Network Monitoring Thresholds

    What you are going to learn:

  • What are the Threshold Presets
  • How do thresholds work
  • How to modify the network monitoring thresholds

Every 60 seconds, the client monitoring agent sends the network metric measurements to the Obkio Cloud. When received, the measurements are analyzed and Network Issues can be raised based on the thresholds. Once the Networks Issues are raised, Smart Notifications are used to send emails to the App users.

It's not always trivial to choose the thresholds used to raise network issues. Depending on the locations, their importance for the business and the technology in place (fiber, cable, dsl, satellite), not all thresholds should be configured the same.

This is why we have Threshold Presets that are ready to use as default values. Metrics like latency and jitter use Dynamic Thresholds, which are based on a historical baseline to avoid adjusting thresholds for each monitoring session.

Threshold Presets
Threshold Presets

To make it easier to configure thresholds, three presets of thresholds are available to use. These presets suit the majority of our customers' use cases, but custom thresholds are always available. The presets are:

  • High Sensitivity
  • Medium Sensitivity (default)
  • Low Sensitivity

The more sensitive the thresholds are, the more likely they are to trigger a Network Issue in the App if metric measurements change from the historical baseline.

Screen Capture Threshold Presets

The thresholds must be selected based on three caracteristics of the connectivity between the agents:

  • Importance
  • Medium
  • Stability

For a stable and important connection between two agents, a High Sensitivity preset is more appropriate. This connection is probably on a very stable medium such as fiber WAN or high-capacity internal network.

Inversely, for a Broadband Internet connection far from metropolitan areas (such as regional DSL), a Low Sensitivity preset is more appropriate to avoid receiving a notification each time a small event occurs.

High Sensitivity - Usage Examples
High Sensitivity - Usage Examples

  • Datacenters
  • Private Cloud
  • Head Offices
  • High-Capacity Fiber links

Medium Sensitivity - Usage Examples
Medium Sensitivity - Usage Examples

  • Stable Broadband Internet Connections
  • Private MPLS (FTTH/FTTB, High-Speed Cable/Coax)

Low Sensitivity - Usage Example
Low Sensitivity - Usage Example

  • Copper/DSL
  • Satellite
  • Unstable connections

Threshold Preset values
Threshold Preset values

Below are the thresholds used in the differente presets. For more information on how these values are used, refer to the Custom Settings page.

High Sensitivity Thresholds
High Sensitivity Thresholds

  • Session Timeout: 10 seconds
  • Packet Loss Warning / Error: 1 / 3 %
  • Latency Warning: 25% increase (minimum difference of 25 ms)
  • Latency Error: 50% increase (minimum difference of 50 ms)
  • Jitter Warning: 25% increase (minimum difference of 25 ms)
  • Jitter Error: 50% increase (minimum difference of 50 ms)

Medium Sensitivity Thresholds
Medium Sensitivity Thresholds

  • Session Timeout: 30 seconds
  • Packet Loss Warning / Error: 2 / 5 %
  • Latency Warning: 50% increase (minimum difference of 50 ms)
  • Latency Error: 100% increase (minimum difference of 100 ms)
  • Jitter Warning: 40% increase (minimum difference of 40 ms)
  • Jitter Error: 80% increase (minimum difference of 80 ms)

Low Sensitivity Thresholds
Low Sensitivity Thresholds

  • Session Timeout: 60 seconds
  • Packet Loss Warning / Error: 2 / 10 %
  • Latency Warning: 75% increase (minimum difference of 75 ms)
  • Latency Error: 150% increase (minimum difference of 150 ms)
  • Jitter Warning: 60% increase (minimum difference of 60 ms)
  • Jitter Error: 120% increase (minimum difference of 120 ms)