Change Alert Monitor

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Overview

Metric monitors are one of the most commonly used type of monitor. This guide clarifies the change alert detection method’s behavior and its additional options. Learn how change alert monitors work and how to troubleshoot change alert evaluations.

What are change alert monitors?

Here is a breakdown of how monitors with the change detection method work:

  1. The monitor takes a query of data points at the current time.
  2. It takes a query of data points N minutes, hours, or days ago.
  3. Then, it takes a query of the difference of the values between (1) and (2).
  4. Aggregation is applied over the query in (3) which returns a single value.
  5. The threshold defined in Set alert conditions is compared to the single value returned in (4).

Monitor creation

To create a Change Alert monitor in Datadog, use the main navigation: Monitors –> New Monitor –> Change.

Evaluation conditions

Here are the different options that you need to configure in a change alert monitor.

Configuration options for change alert detection method

The example shows the following alert condition: The average of the change over 1 hour compared to 5 minutes

Options selectedDescriptionOptions
averageThe aggregation that is used on the query.Average, Maximum, Minimum, Sum
changeChoose between the absolute or percentage change of the value.change or % change
1 hourThe evaluation window. For more information, see the Monitor Configuration documentation.This can be N minutes, hours, days, weeks, or at most one month.
5 minutesThe timeframe that you wish to shift the query by.This can be N minutes, hours, days, weeks, or at most one month ago.

Change and change %

There are two options when configuring a change alert detection, Change and % Change.

This determines the way the monitor evaluates as expressed in the formula section in the following table:

OptionDescriptionFormula
ChangeThe absolute change of the value.a - b
% ChangeThe percentage change of the value compared to its previous value.((a - b) / b) * 100

In both cases, Change, and % Change can be either positive or negative.

Notifications

For instructions on the Configure notifications and automations section, see the Notifications and Monitor configuration pages.

Troubleshooting a change alert evaluation

To verify the results of your change alert evaluation, reconstruct the metric queries with a Notebook. Take this change alert monitor with the following settings.

The create monitor page with a change alert selected, evaluating the percent change of the average of the metric system.load.1 over the last 5 minutes compared to the last 30 minutes

Monitor Query: pct_change(avg(last_5m),last_30m):<METRIC> > -50

This is a break down of the query with the following conditions:

  1. Aggregation of avg.
  2. Uses % change.
  3. Evaluation window of 5 minutes.
  4. Timeshift of 30 minutes or 1800 seconds.
  5. Threshold of > -50.

Reconstructing the query

  1. Use a notebook and the timeshift function to reconstruct the data used by the monitor at a specific evaluation.
    • Query of data points at the current time (this is the normal query ).
    • Query of data points N minutes ago (this is the normal query + timeshift(-1800)).
    • The timeshift function uses a negative duration because you’re shifting the data back. Combine these queries along with the % change formula from the table.
    • Note: Since this example only has one metric, it’s also possible to use a single query (a) and add the formula ((a - timeshift(a, -1800)) / timeshift(a, -1800)) * 100
      The edit screen of a cell in a notebook, titled Reconstruct Change Alert query, configured as a timeseries using the average of the metric system.load.1, from everywhere, with the formula ((a - timeshift(a, -1800)) / timeshift(a, -1800)) * 100 being applied
  2. Compare the monitor’s history graph with the notebook graph. Are the values comparable?
  3. Apply the aggregation.
    • To compare your notebook graph to the change alert monitor evaluation, scope your timeframe to match the change alert.
    • For example, if you are looking to verify the value of a monitor evaluation over the last five minutes at 1:30, scope your notebook to 1:25 - 1:30.

Further reading