Network Baselining: Defining Normal

What is Network Baselining? (The "Normal" Secret) (Day 21/30) Youget an alert:

"CPU is at 50%!" Is that bad? Or is it always at 50%? If you don't know

what's "normal," you can't possibly know what's "wrong." You need to establish a baseline.

A baseline is a picture of your network during normal operation. For one or two weeks,

just collect data. Don't set alerts. Just watch. What's your average bandwidth usage

at 10 AM on a Tuesday? What's the normal CPU load on your firewall? What's your average

latency to the cloud? Once you have this baseline, your alerts become meaningful.

"Normal" is ignored, and abnormal triggers an immediate, intelligent investigation. Tomorrow,