Create an Application
Another key feature of Insights is its ability to build applications by grouping the compute devices and services that make up a business application. Once grouped, Insights automatically:
- Maps the service flows between these devices.
- Identifies the network devices linked to the compute devices.
- Presents all this information in a visual representation.
Process
The process of creating an application in Insights is outlined in the documentation but can be summarized as:
- Go to the Applications menu > Discovery tab > Manual tab.
- Choose the starting point:
- Select services to include in the application.
- Or select compute devices and the services running on them. Typically, it's a combination of both. You can select a device by its hostname and choose from the list of services on that device.
- Next, identify the service flows to and from the selected devices. Insights will display the services linked to the device and the devices it connects to. You can review these connections and decide whether to include additional devices.
- After selecting all the devices and services for the application, click Create Application, review your choices, and give the application a name.
If Insights has already collected service flow data, it can automatically identify flows between devices and suggest configurations under the Discovery tab > Dynamic. You can select and combine these configurations in your application.
Once created, the application will appear in the App List tab. Clicking the application will show:
- A table with all services flows, including from-to details.
- A visual representation of these service flows.
- A topology showing the compute and network devices involved in the application called Integrated Mapping of Application and Network (IMAN). Note that network devices are not part of the application.
- A servers and storage mapping.
If multiple applications share resources or have similar business logic, you can group them and visualize their dependencies within the group.