Blackouts allow you to collect accurate monitoring data. For example, you can stop data collections during periods where a managed target is undergoing routine maintenance, such as a database backup or hardware upgrade. If you continue monitoring during these periods, the collected data will show trends and other monitoring information that are not the result of normal day-to-day operations. To get a more accurate, long-term picture of a target's performance, you can use blackouts to exclude these special-case situations from data analysis.

Performing maintenance operations such as create, edit, or stop a blackout, as well as retrieve various information and statistics on your defined blackouts, can be done using Blackout REST API. For more information, see Blackout APIs.