How to determine the optimal anomaly detection method for your application

Anomaly detection has many applications, such as tracking business KPIs or fraud spotting in credit card transactions. Unfortunately, there's no one best way to detect anomalies across a variety of domains. Jonathan Merriman and Cynthia Freeman introduce a framework to determine the best anomaly detection method for the application based on time series characteristics.

The early detection of anomalies is vital for ensuring undisrupted business and efficient troubleshooting, and anomaly detection has many applications, such as tracking business KPIs or fraud spotting in credit card transactions. Unfortunately, there’s no one best way to detect anomalies across a variety of domains. Such a methodology is a myth given that time series can display a wide range of behaviors. In addition, what behavior is anomalous can differ from application to application. Jonathan Merriman and Cynthia Freeman introduce a framework to determine the best anomaly detection method for the application based on time series characteristics (e.g., seasonality, concept drift, etc.). It allows you to plug in detection methods as well as how you want to evaluate them. This framework is not limited to any particular anomaly detection or evaluation methods. In addition, the framework can be applied to a broad set of time series classes.