# Normalized fields are not acting like numerical fields?

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/normalized-fields-are-not-acting-like-numerical-fields/195113>\
**Category:** Beats\
**Tags:** metricbeat\
**Created:** [August 13, 2019, 9:54pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/normalized-fields-are-not-acting-like-numerical-fields/195113 "2019-08-13T21:54:32Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![EricJohnson](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/ericjohnson/32/53592_2.png) [@EricJohnson](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/EricJohnson)\
**Post date:** [August 13, 2019, 9:54pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/normalized-fields-are-not-acting-like-numerical-fields/195113/1 "2019-08-13T21:54:32Z")

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Hello out there.

If I work with utilization data from Metricbeat, fields like _system.cpu.total.pct_ are easy to create graphs with, can be used for statistical analysis, etc. However the normalized values like _system.cpu.total.norm.pct_ don't behave like numerical fields. But they're just normalized numerically so what's the difference?

It would be preferable for us to use normalized values for what we are doing. Without the normalization I'll have to do more calculations which increases the complexity of my code.

Is there an explanation for this? I'd certainly appreciate some input and insight.

Thank you!

 ![normalized](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/f/1/f1a1c0d33be85908c60e538402b1c42bd16050bc.png)

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)\
**Post date:** [September 10, 2019, 9:54pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/normalized-fields-are-not-acting-like-numerical-fields/195113/2 "2019-09-10T21:54:38Z")

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