SYSE.37:4.3 - Qualify low-traffic and missing-data behavior

Examine ordinary quiet periods and rare task classes. One failure among a few attempts can produce a large ratio without demonstrating a sustained high-volume incident. Its practical significance still depends on the consequence of that one failure.

Choose a response fitted to that use: a direct failure alert, a longer justified observation, qualified synthetic probes or an agreed objective change may be appropriate. Do not dilute real user failures with successful artificial requests or unrelated services merely to make an aggregate quieter.

Treat missing data separately from no bad events. A zero denominator, stale series or absent result is not automatically a zero burn rate. Exercise the chosen loss-of-observation rule and its response; it may merit urgent action even when the actual service state is unknown.