Abstract: The disclosed embodiments relate to a system that improves operation of a monitored system. During a training mode, the system uses a training data set comprising labeled data points received from the monitored system to train the SVM to detect one or more conditions-of-interest. While training the SVM model, the system makes approximations to reduce computing costs, wherein the approximations involve stochastically discarding points from the training data set based on an inverse distance to a separating hyperplane for the SVM model. Next, during a surveillance mode, the system uses the trained SVM model to detect the one or more conditions-of-interest based on monitored data points received from the monitored system. When one or more conditions-of-interest are detected, the system performs an action to improve operation of the monitored system.