Data never lies. It’s a collection of facts and information that tells a single story. If x equals 7, there’s no other thing that x could be. However, the failing in data usually doesn’t come from the data itself. It comes from interpretation.
We find ourselves adrift in a sea of data. We have protocols providing us status information and feeding us statistics around the clock. We have systems that will correlate that data and provide a big picture. We have system to aggregate the correlated data and sort it into action items and critical alert levels. With all this data, it’s very easy for us to make assumptions about what we see. The human brain wants to make patterns out of what we see in front of us. The problem comes when the conclusion we reach is incorrect. We may have a preconceived notion of what we want the data to say. Sometimes its confirmation bias. Other times its reporting bias. We come to incorrect conclusions because we keep trying to make the data tell our story instead of listening to what the data tells us.
The smartest thing that you can do when providing network data or server statistics is leave your opinion out of it. I make it a habit to give all the data I can to the person requesting it before I ever open my mouth. Sure, people pay me to look at all that information and make sense of it. Yes, I’ve been biased in my conclusions before. I realize that I’m nowhere near neutral in many of my interpretations, whether it be defending the actions of myself or my team or using the data to support the correctness of a customer’s assumptions. The key to preventing a back-and-forth argument is to simply let the data do all the talking for you. If the data never lies, it can’t possibly lose the argument. Let the data help you. Don’t make the data do your dirty work for you.