Static Threshold 🔗

Static Threshold alerts when a signal goes above or below a static threshold, or is within or outside of a range. Use this condition when you need to be alerted based on fixed values, as opposed to trends (for which you can use the Sudden Change and Resource Running Out conditions) or comparisons with past behavior (for which you can use Historical Anomaly). This condition works best with metrics that have a static range of “good” and “bad” values.

To compare one signal with another, use Custom threshold.

Examples 🔗

You have an availability SLA of 99.9, and want to be alerted whenever your availability drops below that value.
You have a latency signal with a “healthy” range between 200 and 300 ms, and want to be alerted when it falls outside that range.

Settings 🔗

Parameter	Values	Notes
Alert when	`Above`, `Below`, `Out of Range`, `Within Range`
Threshold Lower threshold, Upper threshold	Number	Lower and upper thresholds are available if you choose `Out of Range` or `Within Range` for Alert when. For `Alert when`, if you select `Out of Range` or `Within Range`, you can enter a number for Lower threshold and Upper threshold. For `Within Range`, the threshold values you provide are inclusive ( >= and <= ). For `Out of Range`, the threshold values you provide are exclusive ( > and < ).
Trigger sensitivity	`Immediately`, `Duration`, `Percent of duration`	`Immediately` triggers an alert as soon as the threshold is met. `Duration` triggers when the signal meets and remains at threshold condition for a specified period, such as 10 minutes. If it is normal for a signal to rise and fall rapidly, using this option reduces flappiness. If this option is used, an alert will not trigger if there are any missing data points during the duration. For more information, see Duration to trigger an alert. `Percent of duration` triggers based on the number of data points that met the threshold during the specified duration. For more information, see Duration to trigger an alert.
Duration	Integer >= 1, followed by time indicator (s, m, h, d, w). For example, 30s, 10m, 2h, 5d, 1w.	The amount of time the signal must meet the threshold condition. Longer time periods result in lower sensitivity and potentially fewer alerts.
Percent of duration	Percentage: Integer between 1 and 100; Duration: Integer >= 1, followed by time indicator (s, m, h, d, w). For example, 30s, 10m, 2h, 5d, 1w.	The percentage of anomalous data points received during the specified duration.

Duration to trigger an alert 🔗

As you might expect, choosing Immediately for Trigger Sensitivity means that an alert will be triggered as soon as the signal meets the threshold. This option is the most sensitive (might trigger the most alerts) of the three trigger sensitivity options.

Depending on the nature of your signal, triggering alerts immediately can lead to flappiness. In these cases, you can choose one of the other options, Duration or Percent of duration.

The Duration option triggers when the signal meets and remains at threshold condition for a specified period, such as 10 minutes. Therefore, using this option is less sensitive (might trigger fewer alerts) than the Immediately option. If you use this option, an alert isn’t triggered if any data points are delayed or don’t arrive at all during that time range, even if all the data points that are received do meet the threshold. For more information about delayed or missing data points, see Handle delayed or missing data points.

If you want an option that triggers even if some data points do not arrive on time, use Percent of duration (with a percentage below 100).

The Percent of duration option triggers alerts based on the number of data points that met the threshold during the window, compared to how many data points were expected to arrive. Because this option triggers an alert based on the percentage of data points that met the threshold, it can sometimes trigger an alert even if some data points didn’t arrive on time. Therefore, using this option with a percentage below 100 is more sensitive (might trigger more alerts) than the Duration option.

The following examples illustrate how alerts are triggered in various situations.

Example 1 🔗

Option you specify for Trigger Sensitivity: Duration = 3 minutes
Resolution of the signal: 5 seconds
Number of data points expected in 3 minutes: 12 per minute * 3 minutes (36)

Number of anomalous data points (how many times the threshold must be met) to trigger alert: 36

Total data points expected	Total data points received	Anomalous data points required	Anomalous data points received	Alert is triggered?
36	36	36	36	Yes
36	36	36	35 or fewer	No
36	35	36	35 or fewer	No

Example 2 🔗

Option you specify for Trigger Sensitivity: Percent of Duration = 75% of 3 minutes
Resolution of the signal: 5 seconds
Number of data points expected in 3 minutes: 12 per minute * 3 minutes (36)

Number of anomalous data points (how many times the threshold must be met) to trigger alert: 75% of 36 (27)

Total data points expected	Total data points received	Anomalous data points required	Anomalous data points received	Alert is triggered?
36	36	27	27-36	Yes
36	30	27	27-30	Yes
36	30	27	26 or fewer	No

Note that in the last example above, even if 26 anomalous data points arrive, and 26/30 is greater than the 75% you specified, the required number of anomalous data points (27) did not arrive. Therefore, the alert isn’t triggered. The percent you specify represents percent of expected data points, not percent of received data points.

API usage note 🔗

If you use the Splunk Observability Cloud API to build detectors, you can use the const() function to specify different threshold values for different dimension values. For example, you might have different acceptable SLA values depending on whether a host is in dev, lab, or production. Using the const() function can be more efficient than manually building multiple detectors or detectors with multiple rules. For more information, see the section on creating multiple time series in the Splunk Observability Cloud API documentation .

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