Dynamic Metric Thresholds for Anomaly Detection

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Solution Overview

Problem

Conventional anomaly detection methods face challenges in accurately defining baseline thresholds, leading to false alerts and missed genuine anomalies due to the inability to capture temporal behavior and spatial interactions, especially in complex system environments.

Innovation Solution

A method and system for generating and optimizing metric thresholds that derive temporal and spatio-temporal properties of metrics, using static, dynamic, and composite thresholds, and employing self-learning and self-tuning mechanisms to adapt to changes and user feedback, ensuring accurate anomaly detection.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Ease of manufacture

If blanket threshold is set by using knowledge of experts or simple statistical measures, then implementation is simple, but it results in alarm deluge and false positives

Engineering Contradiction:
Improveease of threshold implementationVSAvoidanomaly detection accuracy
Core Design Contradiction:
Ease of manufactureVSReliability

Solution Approach 1:

The patent implements dynamic thresholds that adapt to temporal behavior patterns of metrics. Instead of static blanket thresholds, the system learns temporal properties (trend, seasonality, periodicity) and adjusts thresholds dynamically based on predicted normal behavior, reducing false positives while maintaining detection accuracy

Inventive Principle:
Principle #15Dynamics

Solution Approach 2:

The system performs self-learning by automatically deriving temporal properties from historical data without requiring expert knowledge. The anomaly detection model trains itself on available metrics to establish baseline behavior patterns, eliminating the need for manual threshold configuration while improving reliability

Inventive Principle:
Principle #25Self-service

2Ease of manufacture

If existing unsupervised methods such as K-means clustering and density estimation are used, then implementation is straightforward, but they cannot capture temporal behavior across different time stamps

Engineering Contradiction:
Improveease of method implementationVSAvoidtemporal behavior capture capability
Core Design Contradiction:
Ease of manufactureVSMeasurement precision

Solution Approach 1:

The patent employs dynamic thresholding that evolves with temporal patterns. The system decomposes time series into trend, seasonality, and residual components, then establishes thresholds based on the residual behavior after removing predictable patterns, enabling accurate detection of temporal anomalies

Inventive Principle:
Principle #15Dynamics

Solution Approach 2:

The system transforms the problem from static clustering to temporal dimensionality analysis by decomposing time series into multiple components (trend, seasonality, residuals) and analyzing anomalies in the residual dimension where temporal patterns are removed, capturing temporal behavior that traditional methods miss

Inventive Principle:
Principle #17Another dimension (Dimensionality change)

3Measurement precision

If ARIMA and LSTM models are used to capture temporal behavior, then temporal patterns are captured, but they are susceptible to data noise and excessive noise leads to increase in false positives

Engineering Contradiction:
Improvetemporal behavior capture capabilityVSAvoidfalse positive rate
Core Design Contradiction:
Measurement precisionVSReliability

Solution Approach 1:

The patent segments the time series signal into distinct components: trend, seasonality, and residuals. By separating the predictable temporal patterns (trend and seasonality) from the unpredictable variations (residuals), the system establishes thresholds only on the residual component, effectively filtering out noise from regular temporal patterns and reducing false positives

Inventive Principle:
Principle #1Segmentation

Solution Approach 2:

The system extracts and removes predictable temporal components (trend and seasonality) from the raw time series data before performing anomaly detection. This extraction isolates the genuine anomalies in the residual signal, making the detection more robust to noise in the original data

Inventive Principle:
Principle #2Taking out (Extraction)

4Ease of operation

If anomaly detection is applied independently to multiple time series, then each series is analyzed individually, but correlation across time series is ignored

Engineering Contradiction:
Improveindependence of analysisVSAvoidcorrelation information across time series
Core Design Contradiction:
Ease of operationVSLoss of information

Solution Approach 1:

The patent merges multiple time series analyses by establishing a global threshold model that learns from all available metrics simultaneously. The system captures correlations across time series through joint training, allowing anomalies in one metric to inform the detection in related metrics, preserving correlation information while maintaining operational simplicity

Inventive Principle:
Principle #5Merging (Combining)

Data Source

PatentEP4390703A1Methods and systems for generation and optimization of metric threshold for anomaly detection
Publication Date: 2024.06.26 TATA CONSULTANCY SERVICES LTD
  • EP4390703A1 patent drawingFigure 1
  • EP4390703A1 patent drawingFigure 2
  • EP4390703A1 patent drawingFigure 3

AI summary

The present disclosure is related to the field of threshold generation where complex temporal and spatial behavior of metrics are modelled to define normal operating baseline of every component in a system environment. Embodiments of the present disclosure provide methods and systems for generation and optimization of metric threshold for anomaly detection. In the present disclosure, temporal properties such as variation, behavioral patterns of a plurality of metrics are derived. The derived temporal properties are used to generate data-driven and domain-aware static or dynamic thresholds. Additionally, the present disclosure factors spatial and temporal properties collectively to mine a role of influencing metrics and define composite thresholds. In order to cater to dynamic behavior of the system environment and changes in business and technological aspects, the system and method of the present disclosure self-learns, self-tunes, and adapts itself based on user feedback which helps in capturing tacit knowledge of domain experts.