You can discover existing applications and add them into vRealize Network Insight.

Procedure

  1. In the Search box, search with the applications string.
  2. Under the Applications tab, perform one or all of the following:

    • sort the application by name, tier, or members.

    • filter the number the applications that you can see in the topology (for example, Top 10, Top 20). Each hexagon represents an application. Greater the count, darker the color of the hexagon.

    • search the applications by name, tiers, or members.

  3. Click the Discover tab.

    You see the following tabs to add an application, which are Tags, ServiceNow, Flows, Names, and Advanced.

  4. Select the preferred tab and perform the related steps.

    Tab

    Description

    Tags

    1. Define the scope.

      • Select All VMs to see a list of all VMs from all the data sources that are added in vRealize Network Insight, or

      • Select Manual Selection and filter the VMs based on the your requirement like account, datacenter, manager, and so on.

    2. Define the key and value for the tag.

      • Enter a key for the tag. For example Automation, Category, CreatedBy, and Owner.

      • (Optional) Enter a value for the respective key.

    3. Click the Found count Applications link to see the list of application names, the VM names and the number of VMs that matches the specified criteria.

    4. Click Unclassified VMs to see a list of VMs that are not following the specified name pattern or tag pattern. You can edit the VMs to fix the name or tag criteria.

    5. Select the Save changes to option for creating a new template or update an existing template.

      Note:

      If you are an admin user, you can update all templates; if you are a member user, you can only edit the templates that you had created.

    6. Click Discover.

    ServiceNow

    You see the applications available on ServiceNow.

    Flows

    You see all the available applications based on flows, and also the application and tier boundaries between VMs based on the network flow communication between the VMs.

    Note:

    You must refresh the page to see all the applications discovered by flows.

    • To modify the scope, click Modify, select appropriate Scope, and click SUBMIT.

    • To pause or stop the auto discovery, click the 3 dots next to Modify and select Pause discovery or Stop discovery.

      Note:

      If you click Stop discovery, you loose all the discovered application.

    • Click Granularity to group the discovered applications at various levels based on number of tiers and VMs. You can select one of the following Granularity levels:

      • Coarse: The application group includes more tiers and VMs.

      • Medium: The application group includes less tiers and VMs.

      • Fine: The application group includes much fewer tiers and VMs.

    Note:

    When you change the Granularity from Medium to Fine for the saved applications, the applications are displayed as unsaved applications.

    In the tabular view of discovered application, you can see the Confidence column which describes the accuracy level of the application grouping. The high confidence level indicates that the grouping accuracy is high and requires less user intervention.

    Names

    1. Define the scope.

      • Select All VMs to see the list of all VMs from all the data sources that are added in vRealize Network Insight, or

      • Select Manual Selection and filter the VMs based on the your requirement like account, datacenter, manager, and so on.

    2. Click Pattern Builder.

      Based on the scope you have defined, vRealize Network Insight filters the list of VMs in the Pattern Builder.

      1. Select the default VM name or select a VM from the list to build a pattern or the regular expression (regex) based on the VM name.

      2. Click on a position or a group to construct a pattern.

        Note:

        After selecting a group, if you select a character or position, vRealize Network Insight ignores your group selection for building the pattern and vice versa.

        Based on your selections, you see the pattern appearing on the screen. And also, you see the list of applications that match the pattern and the count of VMs in the respective applications and the VM names in the respective applications..

      3. Click Submit.

    3. Click the Found count Applications link to see the list of application names, VM names and the number of VMs that matches the regex.

    4. Click Unclassified VMs to see a list of VMs that are not following the specified name pattern.

    5. Select the Save changes to option for creating a new template or update an existing template.

      Note:

      If you are an admin user, you can update all templates; if you are a member user, you can only edit the templates that you had created.

    6. Click Discover.

    Advanced

    1. Define the scope.

      • Select All VMs to see the list of all VMs from all the data sources that are added in vRealize Network Insight, or

      • Select Manual Selection and filter the VMs based on the your requirement like account, datacenter, manager, and so on.

    2. Click Pattern Builder.

      Based on the scope you have defined, vRealize Network Insight filters the list of VMs in the Pattern Builder.

      1. Select the default VM name or select a VM from the list to build a pattern or the regular expression (regex) based on the VM name.

      2. Click on a position or a group to construct a pattern.

        Note:

        After selecting a group, if you select a character or position, vRealize Network Insight ignores your group selection for building the pattern and vice versa.

        Based on your selections, you see the pattern appearing on the screen. And also, you see the list of applications that match the pattern and the count of VMs and the VM names in the respective applications.

      3. Click Submit.

    3. Click the Found count Applications link to see the list of application names and the number of VMs that matches the regex and VM names.

    4. Click Unclassified VMs to see a list of VMs that are not following the specified name pattern.

    5. Select the Save changes to option for creating a new template or update an existing template.

      Note:

      If you are an admin user, you can update all templates; if you are a member user, you can only edit the templates that you had created.

    6. Click Discover.

    You see the tabular and the hexagonal map view of all applications that matches the criteria.

    In the map view, you can hover on the hexagon to see the information such as application name, discovered VM count, and the tier count. The lines between applications and internet represents the connections. You can click on the lines to see the flow details such as count of source and destination flows, and the count of unprotected source flows and unprotected destination flows. The question mark on the hexagon represents that vRealize Network Insight could not find or fetch any flow details for the application may be because the application has exceeded the flow limit or has unprotected flows.

    In the tabular view, you see application details, which includes application names, count of flows that do not reach the destination and gets dropped as the firewall action is denied, and the count of tiers and members.

    The map and the table view are interactive. When you click on an application in the tabular view, the hexagon is highlighted or focused on the map view and displays all the network connections.

  5. (Optional) Perform any of the following actions on the map view:

    • Zoom in and Zoom out, or move the map to see the applications.

    • See all the unprotected applications.

    • See the applications talking to the internet.

    • See all the applications that uses hosts shared services.

    • See the applications with problems.

  6. (Optional) Perform any of the following actions on the table view:

    • Hover the mouse on the value in the member column to see the individual count of VMs, physical IPs, and services.

    • Click an application name to open the application dashboard and view the details of that specific application.

    • Click the + icon in the tabular view to expand the application details such as the criteria and the VM and tier count.

      Note:

      The icon is available for the discovered applications only.

      Click the check box next to the application to select the application.

      Note:

      You can save or delete multiple applications simultaneously by selecting multiple applications at once.

  7. To save the discovered applications, do one of the following:

    Option

    Action

    On the map view

    1. On the map view, hover the mouse on the hexagon and click Save Application.

    2. In the Save Application window, enter the required information

    3. (Optional) To preview the flow analysis, click Update view.

      Shows the Micro-Segment view for the application.

    4. Click Save.

    On the tabular view

    1. On the tabular view, select the application that you want to save and click ACTIONS > SAVE.

      Note:

      You can save multiple applications simultaneously by selecting the check box next to the applications you want to save and click ACTIONS > SAVE.

      You can also select all the application at once by clicking the Application Name check box in the table header.

      Note:

      When you save multiple applications at once, the threshold analytics is deactivated by default. You can enable the threshold analytics by editing the saved application.

    2. When system prompts for confirmation, click Save.

    You see a message notification with the number of application saved successfully and number of application failed to save.

Results

Note:

If the applications are modified in ServiceNow, the auto-update does not happen in vRealize Network Insight. You must update the application manually in vRealize Network Insight.

Table 1. Limitations

Objects

Recommended Limits

Application List in Map View

400

Application list in the tabular view

NA

Saved Applications

1000

Total Tiers across all applications

17000

Tiers Per Application

30

Members Per Tier

NA

Members Per Application

1.8K

If an application exceeds the limit, you then you might not see the flow information in the Application Topology pinboard or you see an error message.

Flows Per Application

300K

If your setup exceeds the recommended limits of tiers, applications, and flows per application, you can still continue to add the objects, however, the performance might degrade.

What to do next

Click Actions > Export as CSV to export the application details to the .csv format. You can define the application count and the fields that you want to export. The application name and tier name fields will be repeated based on the member count (one row per member). Only the fields that are related to the application are filled, leaving the remaining fields empty.

Note: For Flows and ServiceNow, you can also export the application details to the .csv format without saving the applications.