A Business Application is a first class citizen with tiers. Business Applications are groups of related objects in your environment that mimic an application in your business. You can create application to application relationships. Once you add a Business Application to VMware Aria Operations, you can use the Business Applications page to track the health of objects in the application. You can optimize capacity, cost, and run What-if Analysis on Business Applications.
How Business Applications Work
The tier is a convenient way to organize objects that perform a specific task in an application in your organization. For example, you can group all of your database servers together in a tier. Business Applications need not contain tier objects. Application or custom group objects can be connected to a Business Application without a tier object, and a tier object can contain no objects.
The objects in a tier are static. If the set of objects in a tier changes, you must manually edit the Business Application. However, if the Business Application is created by VMware Aria Operations, the changes in the actual application will be reflected in the Business Application object without manual edit.
Construct a Business Application to view a particular segment of your business. The Business Application shows how the performance of one object affects other objects in the same Application, and helps you to locate the source of a problem. For example, if you have an application that includes all the database, Web, and network servers that process sales data for your business, you see a yellow, orange, or red status if the application health is degrading. From the Business Applications page, you can investigate which server is causing or exhibiting the problem.
The Add Business Application Screen
When you click Add, VMware Aria Operations displays a blank canvas on the left pane, and options to select objects on the right pane. The Select Members section in the right pane has two tabs. The Inventory tab displays a list of all objects in you environment in a tree structure. You can search for objects here. The Custom Groups tab displays all the custom groups in your environment. You can use the search bar to search for custom groups.
Drag and drop objects from the right pane to the tier objects on the left pane. You can also drag and drop objects directly to the Business Application. Click Save to create the Business Application.
The new Business Application canvas is what you use to build your Business Application.
| Option | Description |
|---|---|
| Vertical icon | Change the layout of the canvas from horizontal to vertical. |
| Undo icon | Undo the last action. |
| Redo icon | Redo the last action. |
| Fit View icon | Fit the Business Application structure within the boundary of the canvas. Use this option after you zoom into the canvas. |
| Add Tier icon | Add a new tier to the Business Application |
| Edit Tier icon | Available when you click a tier. Click the edit icon in a tier to edit the name and description of the tier. |
| Edit Business Application Details icon | Available when you click a Business Application. Click the edit icon in the Business Application to open the Business Applications Detail dialog box. Alternatively, click the DETAILS link next to the name of the Business Application. |
| Preview | Available for custom group and application objects when you have added objects to a tier. Click the preview icon after you have added an Application to a tier to see how services and objects within the application are related. This interactive element is displayed on the right pane. You can view links, switch to spherical view or list view. If you have too many objects to can use the filter option to find objects. |
The Select Members pane is where you select objects to add to the Business Application. Drag an object to add to a tier in the canvas. Applications and custom groups can be nested under a Business Application. Custom groups can be added to applications and vice versa.
To find an object, search by name. Each object listed includes identifier information to help distinguish between objects of similar names.
| Option | Description |
|---|---|
| Search | Available in the Inventory and Custom Groups tabs. Search for objects to add to the Business Application. Filter your search by clicking the filter icon. In the Inventory tab, by using the filter option, you can choose to see only objects which are Applications. |
| Inventory | Browse the inventory to select objects to add to the Business Application using drag and drop. |
| Custom Groups | Browse custom groups to add to the Business Application using drag and drop. You can nest custom groups or add them to the Business Application directly. You can add custom groups to Applications. |
The Business Applications Details dialog box is where you add information to build out a model of your Business Application resources through applications and other infrastructure objects in your environment.
| Option | Description |
|---|---|
| Description | Provide a description for your Business Application. |
| Application Tag | Provide a tag for your Business Application. |
| Business Criticality | This is your Business Application business criticality. Select between Medium, Critical and Low. Default is Medium. |
| Environment | This is where your Business Application is deployed. Select from one of the following options:
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