Context: Adaptive monitoring is a method used in a variety of domains for responding to changing conditions. It has been applied in different ways, from monitoring systems’ customization to re-composition, in different application domains. However, to the best of our knowledge, there are no studies analyzing how adaptive monitoring differs or resembles among the existing approaches.

Objective: To characterize the current state of the art on adaptive monitoring, specifically to: (a) identify the main concepts in the adaptive monitoring topic; (b) determine the demographic characteristics of the studies published in this topic; (c) identify how adaptive monitoring is conducted and evaluated by the different approaches; (d) identify patterns in the approaches supporting adaptive monitoring.

Method: We have conducted a systematic mapping study of adaptive monitoring approaches following recommended practices. We have applied automatic search and snowballing sampling on different sources and used rigorous selection criteria to retrieve the final set of papers. Moreover, we have used an existing qualitative analysis method for extracting relevant data from studies. Finally, we have applied data mining techniques for identifying patterns in the solutions.

Results: We have evaluated 110 studies organized in 81 approaches that support adaptive monitoring. By analyzing them, we have: (1) surveyed related terms and definitions of adaptive monitoring and proposed a generic one; (2) visualized studies’ demographic data and arranged the studies into approaches; (3) characterized the main approaches’ contributions; (4) determined how approaches conduct the adaptation process and evaluate their solutions. Conclusions

This cross-domain overview of the current state of the art on adaptive monitoring may be a solid and comprehensive baseline for researchers and practitioners in the field. Especially, it may help in identifying opportunities of research; for instance, the need of proposing generic and flexible software engineering solutions for supporting adaptive monitoring in a variety of systems.