# Population Job Use case

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/population-job-use-case/362443>\
**Category:** Elasticsearch\
**Tags:** elastic-stack-machine-learning\
**Created:** [July 3, 2024, 8:45am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/population-job-use-case/362443 "2024-07-03T08:45:54Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Septianingrum.17](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/34f0e0/32.png) [@Septianingrum.17](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Septianingrum.17)\
**Post date:** [July 3, 2024, 8:45am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/population-job-use-case/362443/1 "2024-07-03T08:45:54Z")

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Dear All,

Currently I want to optimize the machine learning that I have, but I am still very confused about how to optimize the use of population jobs for my logs, is there a use case that I can use? and under what conditions does my data require this population job?

Thank you,

Regards,  
Septia

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**Author:** ![jessgarson](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/jessgarson/32/129841_2.png) [@jessgarson](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/jessgarson)\
**Post date:** [July 3, 2024, 6:40pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/population-job-use-case/362443/2 "2024-07-03T18:40:25Z")

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Hi @Septianingrum.17,

Thanks for reaching out. Some examples of when you may want to use population jobs include when you have a large group of similar entries, looking for data behavior that's only abnormal about the larger dataset rather than in absolute terms, or when you have scalability concerns.

I've found our [job type documentation](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/machine-learning/current/ml-anomaly-detection-job-types.html) helpful in the past as well.

I'm also interested in hearing more about your use and what you want to use anomaly detection for.

Best,

Jessica

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**Author:** ![richcollier](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/richcollier/32/115035_2.png) [@richcollier](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/richcollier)\
**Post date:** [July 8, 2024, 8:53pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/population-job-use-case/362443/3 "2024-07-08T20:53:28Z")

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Good blog:

> **[Temporal vs. Population Analysis in Elastic Machine Learning](https://www.elastic.co/blog/temporal-vs-population-analysis-in-elastic-machine-learning)**
>
> Learn the differences between these two types of machine learning analysis via a practical use case involving document access and potential information stealing....