An alert is basically an exception handling mechanism that notifies user when certain data is out of a pre-defined range. Typically, the user is looking at some KPIs (key performance indicators) that are important to his/her organization. Some example KPIs on which a user may want to set alerts are inventory level, profit margin, sales growth rate, percentage of dropped calls in a mobile network, number of intrusion attempts on a company network, response time on customer support/service center etc..