I have been trying to help operational IT groups understand how important rate of change of resource consumption is. Finally I cam up with an analogy that helps. In the airline industry, it isn't necessarily a bad thing if an aircraft is on the ground. It may not be returning anything to the business, but it isn't necessarily awful. However the RATE at which it got to the ground is very important. Impact at 300kts is unlikely to be what anyone had in mind. Graceful "impact" at 150 kts may be perfectly OK.
So while the lower rate of change is no guarantee that things are good, the higher rate of change means that immediate action will need to be taken.
Likewise in systems, if a disk gets to use 80% of its capacity gradually, there is probably no need to panic. A careful plan will allow operations to ensure that disaster doesn't strike. If it spikes suddenly then there is a definite need to do something quickly before the system locks up or starts losing transactions.
Knowing that there will be an issue is even more important than recovering from an issue that has already happened.
So while the lower rate of change is no guarantee that things are good, the higher rate of change means that immediate action will need to be taken.
Likewise in systems, if a disk gets to use 80% of its capacity gradually, there is probably no need to panic. A careful plan will allow operations to ensure that disaster doesn't strike. If it spikes suddenly then there is a definite need to do something quickly before the system locks up or starts losing transactions.
Knowing that there will be an issue is even more important than recovering from an issue that has already happened.
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