Alert Policy Templates

The Kentik-provided alert policy templates help cover the most common network traffic anomalies.

Notes:
For general information about policy-based alerting, see Policy Alerts Overview.
For information on the Alerting page, see Alerting.
For information on alert notifications, see Notifications.
For information on alert mitigations, see Mitigation Overview.

*Kentik-provided templates can be cloned and tailored to your organization's alerting needs.*

About Alert Policy Templates

Kentik’s alerting system includes templates for common traffic anomaly policies, allowing you to respond with manual or automated mitigation. These templates are listed on the Alert Policy Templates page. You can’t add or modify policy templates, but you can clone them to your Alert Policies page. The cloned template remains unchanged, while your new policy is fully editable to meet your organization’s needs.

Alert Policy Templates Page

The Alert Policy Templates page is a list of Kentik-provided policy templates to cover the most common network traffic anomalies.

Note: Only Administrators can access the Alert Policy Templates page.

Policy Templates Access

To access the Alert Policy Templates page:

Choose Alerting from the portal's main navbar to go to the Alerting page.
Click Manage Policies at the upper right to go to the Policies page.
Click Alert Policy Templates at upper right to go to the Alert Policy Templates page.

Policy Templates Page UI

The Alert Policy Templates page includes the following UI elements:

Subnav: Breadcrumbs for the page.
Show/hide filters (filter icon): Toggles the expanded/collapsed Filters pane.
Search field: Enter text to filter the policies in the Policy Templates List. The list will show only policies with matching text in at least one column (ID or Name). The field also displays lozenges for filters applied with the Filters pane, if any.
Filters pane: Use to narrow the alert policies shown in the Policy Templates List, (see Policy Templates Filters).
Policy templates list: A table listing the available policy templates (see Policy Templates List).

Policy Templates List

The Policy Templates list is a table showing all Kentik-provided policy templates. The table includes the following columns:

ID: The template's unique ID.
Type: The type of template, NMS, Traffic, Cloud, or Protect (see Policy Types).
Name: The name and description of the template. Once cloned, you can change the name and description of the resulting policy.
Metrics: The units (e.g., bits/s, packets/s) by which the template measures incoming flow data (see Data Funneling). The primary metric is listed first, followed by secondary metrics (if any).
Dimensions: The dimensions in the template, combining to make a key for how traffic is grouped for evaluation (see About Keys and Dimensions Reference).
Create: Clones the template and opens the resulting policy for editing (see Clone a Policy Template). Once saved, the new policy will appear in the Policies List, while the template remains unchanged.

Note: To see more template details, click its row to open its Template Details Drawer. Click same row again to close the drawer.

Policy Templates Filters

Filter the templates in the Policy Templates List using the controls in the Filters pane. The pane includes:

Reset To Default (appears only when a filter is specified): Click to clear all filters.
Type: Click a policy type box, NMS, Traffic, Cloud, and/or Protect to restrict the list (see Policy Types).
Template ID: Search for a specific template by its ID number (no partial matches).
Note: The template ID differs from the policy ID assigned to a policy cloned from that template.

Template Details Drawer

The Policy Template Details drawer, which provides a summary of a template’s settings, opens when you click a row in the Policy Templates List. It includes the following:

ID: The unique template ID.
Name: The Kentik-provided template name.
Create (button): Click to create a new policy from the template (see Clone a Policy Template).
Description: The Kentik-provided template description, if any.
Dataset (pane): Summary of settings that determine evaluated traffic for the template (see Policy Dataset Settings).
Thresholds (pane): Summary of threshold settings for the template. The number of thresholds defined in the template is shown in parentheses (see Policy Threshold Settings).
Baseline (pane): Summary of baseline settings for the template (see Policy Baseline Settings).

When you clone a template into a policy, you can modify the policy settings while the template remain unchanged.

Clone a Policy Template

To create an alert policy from a template using the Alert Policy Templates page:

Navigate to the Alert Policy Templates page (see Policy Templates Access).
Click Create for the policy you'd like to clone.
1. Alternatively, click Create in the template's Template Details Drawer.
Modify the policy as needed (see Policy Settings).
Use the indicators in the Policy Summary Pane to check for missing information or errors.
Click Save. The new policy will now appear in your Policies List.

Note: To create an alert policy from a template on the Policies page, click the arrow on the Add Policy button and select Add Alert Policy from Template (see Add Policy from Template).