In this blog post, we’ll look at how Prophet can forecast metrics.
Facebook recently released a forecasting tool called Prophet. Prophet can forecast a particular metric in which we have an interest. It works by fitting time-series data to get a prediction of how that metric will look in the future.
For example, it could be used to:
- Predict how much HTTP traffic we will get, and scale accordingly when needed
- See if a particular feature of our application will have success or if its usage will decline
- Get an approximate date when our database server’s resources will be exhausted
- Forecast new customer’s sign up and resize the staff accordingly
- See what next year’s Black Friday or Cyber Monday will look like, and if we have the resources to handle them …