You are a software developer working for a certain network security company. Your team has been tasked with developing a program to establish a baseline of network usage, produce a graphical report and approximate a mathematical function for the data. Currently, you are working on developing the reporting functionality, which should include times when network usage was abnormal. What are two ways, using calculus and without, to implement this feature? Which implementation is more efficient? Assume that any fluctuations in the baseline will result in the same value and that the baseline cannot be represented as a mathematical function (it would be too easy...).
(Non-calculus) Compare two values f(t) at t. The lesser f(t) is ignored and the larger f(t) is compared to the next f(t). Iterate for all values of t in the report.
(Calculus) Find the max(es) of the function by differentiating and setting f'(t) equal to 0, then solving for t.
The Calculus-based implementation is more efficient because it involves less operations.