Configure correlation logic in New Relic with decisions — let’s reduce distracting alerts!
With applied intelligence’s correlation logic, related issues are grouped together to reduce distracting and redundant alerts. As events come into your system they are eligible for our correlation logic. Eligible issues are evaluated based on time, alert context, and relationship data. If multiple issues are related then our correlation logic will funnel the related incidents into a single, comprehensive issue.
We call this correlation logic decisions. We have built-in decisions but you can also create and customize your own on the decisions page. To find the decisions page go to one.newrelic.com > Alerts & AI > Decisions. The more you configure your decisions to best suit your needs, the better New Relic can correlate your incidents, reduce noise, and provide increased context for on-call teams.
What is correlation and how does it work?
Your most recent and active incidents are available for our correlation logic. For example, let’s say your system has received two alerts saying a synthetic monitor is failing in Australia and London. These two alerts will have created their own unique incidents. Those incidents will generate their own unique issues based on your teams existing incident creation policy. The correlation logic of New Relic will then test those incidents against each other to find similarities. In this case, it’s the same monitor that is failing across multiple locations, so New Relic will merge both incidents into a single issue that contains each relevant event.
When we correlate events, we check every pair of combinations against each other and combine as many as possible. For example: Our algorithm correlates incident A and B (call it “AB”).
- Our algorithm correlates incident B and C (call it “BC”).
- Because B is present in both issues, the algorithm then correlates all three incidents together into one issue.
Configure correlation policy
To enable correlation on alert-based issues, you’ll need to connect to correlation for the respective alert policy.
Decision types
Decisions determine how incident intelligence correlates issues together. The correlation logic of New Relic is available to your team in three different decision types:
- Global decision: A broad set of default decisions are automatically enabled when you start using applied intelligence.
- Suggested decision: New Relic’s correlation engine constantly evaluates your event data to suggest decisions that capture correlation patterns to reduce noise. You can preview simulation results of a suggested decision and choose to activate.
- Custom decision: Your team can customize decisions based on your use case to enhance correlation effectiveness. The decision UI of New Relic gives you flexibility to configure all dimensions in a decision.
Review your active decisions
To review your teams existing decisions:
- Go to one.newrelic.com> Alerts & AI > Incident intelligence > Decisions.
- Review the list of active decisions. To see the rule logic that creates correlations between your issues, click the decision.
- To see examples of incidents the decision correlated, click the Recent correlations tab.
- You have the option to enable or disable these global decisions.
Configure sources
Before configuring your decisions, it’s important to determine the sources you would like to correlate. Sources are your data inputs.
You can get data from any of the following sources:
Alerts
Aporia (MLOps)
Superwise (MLOps)
REST API
Global decisions
Global decisions are automatically enabled when your team starts using applied intelligence. They require no configuration and are immediately available for your team. Global decisions cover a variety of correlation scenarios.
Use suggested decisions
The data from your selected sources is continuously inspected for patterns to help reduce noise. Once patterns have been observed in your data, our correlation logic will suggest unique decisions that would allow these types of events to correlate in the future.
To get started, click Suggested decisions tab on the topic of Decisions UI page. You can see the logic behind the suggested decision, and the estimated correlation rate by clicking each suggested decision.
To enable a suggested decision, click Add to your decisions. Once activated, the decision will appear in your teams main decision table. All suggested decisions will be show the creator as New Relic AI.
If the suggested decision isn’t relevant to your needs, click Dismiss.
Create custom decisions
You can reduce noise and improve correlation by building your own custom decisions. To start building a decision, go to one.newrelic.com > Alerts & AI Alerts & AI > Correlate > Decisions, and click Add a decision.
Logic filter: Logic condition defined with an operator on an attribute. Segment: A group of incidents satisfy a combination of logic filters.
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To create your own custom decision complete the following steps. Keep in mind that steps 1, 2, and 3 are optional on their own, but at least one of the three must be defined in order to create a decision.
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