Adobe Inc.
End of period metric projection with intra-period alerts

Abstract:

Techniques of forecasting web metrics involve generating, prior to the end of a period of time, a probability of a metric taking on an anomalous value, e.g., a value indicative of an anomaly with respect to web traffic, at the end of the period based on previous values of the metric. Such a probability is based on a distribution of predicted values of the metric at some previous period of time. For example, a web server may use actual values of the number of bounces collected at hourly intervals in the middle of a day to predict a number of bounces at the end of the current day. Further, the web server may also compute a confidence interval to determine whether a predicted end-of-day number of bounces may be considered anomalous. The width of the confidence interval indicates the probability that a predicted end-of-day number of bounces has an anomalous value.