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The Threshold Editor is used to define thresholds on individual network elements. If a threshold needs to be created on an individual interface on an individual router for instance, the threshold editor would be used.

The Policy Editor is used to quickly and easily create thresholds spanning a large subset of all network devices. When configuring policies, you are not concerned with individual devices but rather with groups of devices and types of objects. Creating thresholds to alert users on high CPU utilization across all Cisco routers in the New York Data Center is a single entry in the Policy Editor.

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The Policy and Threshold Editors can be filtered to display all configured thresholds and policies based on operating systems. This includes groups, plug-ins (SNMP, ICMP, HTTP, IPSLA, etc.), devices or performance indicators. All events are displayed real time or can be set to trigger a message to your e-mail or phone.