Applications

Overview

The Applications module allows you to create applications, dynamically or manually, in both physical and virtual environments.

In Resolve Insights terms, an application is a subset of your inventory that is directly related to the operation and health of a service or a software application running in your network. By creating an application, you can more easily monitor how the application's devices and services interact with each other and if they are up and running.

Create Applications

Application creation is the process of identifying the devices and services responsible for an application. You can create applications in two ways:

• Dynamically - Pick a pre-built application recommendation and then customize it if it doesn't match your application perfectly.
  Dynamic applications have the benefit of being able to add new service flows to existing applications as they evolve.
• Manually - Select devices by service, platform, vendor, IP address, FQDN, and so on.

Use the manual method when the dynamic method does not yield the exact application recommendation that you want.

You can also combine existing applications into application groups for organization and combined monitoring.

Prerequisites

Before you can create applications, ensure that the following conditions are met:

• Ensure that your inventory is complete. Rerun discovery if needed.
• Ensure that you have properly configured the application services under Settings > Service Configuration before running discovery.
• Ensure that your server flow schedule is started and that it includes all the devices that make up your application.
  You can start building manual applications as soon as the schedule's status becomes Executed. For dynamic applications, allow enough time after the schedule's start for Insights to build the server flows. The required waiting time will vary, but as a rule of thumb, allow between 10 and 30 minutes.
• Prepare an application inventory list including the devices that make up your application and the services that run on them. Collect the following data for each device:
  • Hostname
  • IP address
  • List of services required by the application

Create Applications Manually

You can manually pick the devices responsible for your application using a combination of search criteria such as service, IP address, and hostname.

Take these steps to create an application manually:

1. Navigate to Applications.
2. Click + Add Application button and select Manual option from the drop-down.
3. Enter Application Name
4. On the Select Devices section, choose the devices and the services making up the application. By default, all discovered devices are listed. You can use the service drop-down to list only devices with a specific service and the search filter to limit the devices by hostname or IP address.
5. Choose the devices that you want to include in your application.
6. On Identify Flows section, click Next Hop to find connected devices. The list of newly identified devices shows all devices that have income or outcome service flow communication to the initially selected devices. Review those Flows for each of the devices in the list.
   note

   An incomplete flow typically occurs when Insights finds out that a device is communicating with another device, but that second device is not yet discovered or is not reachable.

7. (Optional) Select one or more devices from the first Hop and click Next Hop to find further connected devices. Insights will suggest new hops until it cannot find any more connections in the server flow data.
8. Click Continue to review the devices and the services that will be included in the application. Remove any rows for devices that do not belong to the application (if any) or deselect the services that do not belong to the application (if any).
9. Click Create to create the application with the selected devices and services.

After creating the application, allow it a few minutes to populate its views with information.

Create Applications Dynamically

info

This feature is available only on the old Insights User Interface. If you are working on the new User Interface, you will not be able to use this feature. Please use the Legacy Insights button in the top-right corner of the header to return to the old interface and access the feature.

With dynamic discovery, Insights allows you to pick from a list of application suggestions that it creates using the pre-built server flow data. You are still required to have an excellent understanding of your network and the application you want to create in order to pick the suggestion that is the closest to your needs.

Take these steps to create an application dynamically:

1. Navigate to Applications > Discovery > Dynamic.
2. On the Select Service tab, select the services that are part of your application using one of the following methods:
   • In the Service drop-down list, you can select one or more services (using Ctrl+click). Multiple selection uses logical OR.
     The list shows all services present in your inventory. Services that you haven’t configured under Settings > Service Configuration before running discovery are combined under the Other category.
   • In the search field, you can enter one or more comma-separated search strings matching service names. Partial strings are possible, e.g., elastic for Elasticsearch.
3. Click Submit.
   One or more flow groups based on your selection appear as recommendations.
4. Review the recommendations to find the one that matches the actual application topology in your network.
   You can do the following on each recommendation's tile:
   • Click Show Service Mapping to open a dialog box with detailed information about the devices on the graph and the services that they are running.
   • Click Show Hierarchical/Flat View to toggle between alternative graphical representations of the flow group.
5. Select one or more flow groups that match the actual application topology in your network and click Create Application.
   In case you don’t see a flow group that matches your application perfectly, select a group or a combination of groups that contains all the devices you need, even if it has a surplus. You will be able to remove unwanted devices and services in the next step or after creating the application.
6. In the Create Application dialog box, do the following:
   1. In Application Name, give the application a suitable name.
   2. In the table, deselect the rows for devices that do not belong to the application (if any).
   3. In the Services column, deselect the services that do not belong to the application (if any).
      • Remote Service - This option is currently unused.
      • Click All Other Services to select or deselect unmapped services under the Other category
   4. Click Submit to create the application.

After creating the application, allows it a few minutes to populate its views with information.

View an Application

After creating an application, it's available under the Applications section. You can see a summary of each application, such as name, number of devices, and creation time. To view the full application details, click on the Details (info) icon next to the application itself. The Application Details window opens with the following details:

• Flows tab - The application flow view shows how the services inside your application interact with each other. You can see the devices constituting the application, the service flows between services running on them, and the direction of those service flows. To view details about any of the service flows running between the various services inside your application, click the connection that represents it. The service flow details on the table will be filtered, and you can see details about the source device and service as well as the target device and service.

  The Flows tab will be empty if you have skipped the hop detection steps when manually creating the application.

• Service Mapping tab - The service mapping view shows each of the application's server machines and the services running on it. Hover over any node to see details about the hypervisor, the server, or the service. Click a device to open a device details window.

• Storage Mapping tab - The storage mapping view helps you identify server machines that will be directly affected when a particular storage system goes down. Hover over any node to see details about the device. Click a device to open a device details window.

View the Application Topology

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This feature is available only on the old Insights User Interface. If you are working on the new User Interface, you will not be able to use this feature. Please use the Legacy Insights button in the top-right corner of the header to return to the old interface and access the feature.

For every application, Insights provides an Integrated Mapping of Application and Network (IMAN) view. It represents a slice of your site's full topology and provides similar functionality as the main Topology tab.

It shows how the application is built using a topology map, including virtual and physical machines, managed networking devices, and storage.

To open the IMAN view:

1. Navigate to Applications > App List.
2. Click the required application in the Application or Application Group panels.
   The Application Details window opens.
3. Click the Iman View tab in the lower right pane.

Edit an Application

You can still make changes to your application after you create it. This way, you will be able to keep your Insights application in line with your actual application as it evolves or changes without having to recreate it from scratch every time.

Add Service Flows

You can add application flows after the application is created. New flows might appear as your inventory evolves and the server flow scheduled tasks reveal the changes.

Adding a flow will also add devices to the application if the new flow involves devices that are not yet in the application's topology.

To add an application flow:

1. Open the Application Details window.
2. Click the +Add New Flow button on the top-right corner.
   The New Flows dialog box opens, listing all flows that can be added to the application.
3. In the table, check the boxes for one or more flows and then click Add.

The new flows appear in the table and in the graphical representations on the right.

Remove Servers or Services

You can remove servers or services that are no longer relevant to your application.

Removing a server will also remove it from the flows, service, and storage mappings.

Removing a service will also remove it from the flows table. If the device has no more services included in the application, the device will also be removed from the application.

To remove a service or server from the application:

1. Open the Application Details window.
2. Click the Edit Flows button in the top-right corner.
   The Edit Flows dialog box opens, listing all servers and services currently included in the application.
3. In the table, remove the entire row or unselect a service from the existing device and then click Save.

Edit the Topology

info

This feature is available only on the old Insights User Interface. If you are working on the new User Interface, you will not be able to use this feature. Please use the Legacy Insights button in the top-right corner of the header to return to the old interface and access the feature.

You can remove devices or services to your application at any time. To add a device, you need to start the application over.

To edit the topology:

1. Navigate to Applications > App List.
2. Click the required application in the Application or Application Group panels.
   The Application Details window opens.
3. Click the Iman View tab in the lower right pane.
4. In the toolbar, click the Edit (pencil) icon.
   The Edit Iman dialog box appears.
5. Change the constituting devices and services:
   • To remove a device from the application, uncheck the box in front of its name.
   • To remove a service from any of the constituting devices, click its name until it goes gray.
6. Click Submit.

You may want to update your application in case you have re-run discovery after a change in the application's services. Such changes might create new or discontinue existing service flows. Updating works by recreating the application based on the same devices, but with the new device, service, and service flow information discovered in the Insights database.

To update an application:

1. Navigate to Applications > App List.
2. Click the required application in the Application or Application Group panels.
   The Application Details window opens.
3. Click the Iman View tab in the lower right pane.
4. Click the Update button in the view toolbar.
5. Allow a few minutes for the application to be recreated.

Create Application Groups

You can combine applications into groups called application groups. Application groups make it easier to organize applications and also give you the option to explore a combined view of all the constituting applications on a single screen.

To create an application group:

1. Navigate to Applications.
2. Under Application Groups
   2.1. Click the +Add Application Group button.
   2.2. Enter the name of the group that you want to create.
   2.3. Click the Create button.
   The group name that you entered is added to the list.
3. Drag-and-drop the applications that you want to add to the group from the Applications list on the left onto the application group.

To remove an application from the application group, click the Remove (X) icon next to its name in the application group.

To delete an application group, first remove all application in it, and then click on the Delete (X) icon next to its name.

To delete an application that is part of an application group, first remove the application from the application group and then delete it.

View a Group

info

This feature is available only on the old Insights User Interface. If you are working on the new User Interface, you will not be able to use this feature. Please use the Legacy Insights button in the top-right corner of the header to return to the old interface and access the feature.

After creating an application group, you can view all its constituent applications in a combined group view similar to a single-application view.

To explore the combined view, click the group name under Applications > App List.

The application group view offers features similar to those of the single application view but with a few additions and differences.

View Combined Application Flows

On the left, the Service Flows > App Flows panel shows the flows of all apps comprising the group in a single table. As with an application, clicking a flow visualizes it on the Iman View tab.

The Iman View tab shows the topology of all devices comprising the group's applications.

View Flows Between Applications

The Service Flows > Inter-app Flows panel on the right is a group-only addition. In a table view, this panel shows the flows that go between the applications as opposed to within each application. These flows are visualized on the Inter-app Flows View tab on the right.

On the Inter-app Flows View tab, every app is represented as a square with flows between the squares. When multiple flows run between a pair of squares, they are presented as a flow bundle (a ticker line). Upon clicking on any of the flows or bundles between the squares, an additional App To App Flow tab opens. The App To App Flow tab presents a more detailed view of the clicked flows with the source and destination devices shown, visually split by application. The Inter-app Flows table on the left also filters to only show the flow or flow bundle that you clicked.

To visualize the details of a different flow or flow bundle, first close the App To App Flow tab and then click the flow or flow bundle on the Inter-app Flows View tab.

View Flows Within a Single Group Application

On the right, the App Flows View tab visualizes the service flows within a single application. Use the drop-down list in the view's upper right corner to switch between the group's applications.