Manage application monitor thresholds in SAM
Thresholds are markers that indicate certain levels were reached, which you can adjust and set to act as trigger points for many component monitors included in SAM application monitor templates and application monitors, and other features such as Application Dependencies.
For example, to monitor CPU usage, a Critical threshold set at 90% would be typical. After setting thresholds, you can configure alerts so SAM sends an email when a Critical status threshold is breached.
If thresholds are set too low, you'll receive frequent alerts. If set too high, problems can occur without your knowledge.
The SolarWinds Platform includes predefined, general thresholds for most statistics, but you can override these thresholds and customize them on a per-object basis. For example, global thresholds exist for Disk Usage and Response statistics for all monitored nodes, but can be updated for specific nodes.
The following statistics have global thresholds that apply to each node monitored in the SolarWinds Platform, by default:
- Average CPU load
- Disk Usage
- Percent memory Used
- Percent Packet Loss
- Response Time
Baseline data, as well as Warning and Critical thresholds for application monitors, can also be gathered and calculated automatically, as described in Adjust threshold settings and apply baseline data in SAM. The option to enter thresholds manually remains available. In general, you should monitor applications for several weeks to collect enough data to use as a baseline, and then make an educated guess about how to set Warning and Critical thresholds for component monitors.
By default, I/O thresholds of Windows Service Monitors are not set.
This section includes the following topics:
- Inherit thresholds from SAM application monitor templates
- Multi-value scripts and thresholds
- Apply baseline thresholds at the template level
- Apply baseline thresholds at the application-monitor level
- Adjust threshold settings and apply baseline data in SAM
- View the Latest Baseline Details for an application in SAM
Additional resources about thresholds include:
- Thresholds in the SolarWinds Platform (SolarWinds Platform Administrator Guide)
- Use Min/Max Average Statistic charts to set thresholds based on 95th percentile data (Success Center)
- Baseline thresholds (THWACK)
For an overview about SAM application monitor alerts, watch Alerting on an application.