Business Applications

Using Business Applications

Device42 Business Applications offers a powerful way to build custom maps of business critical functions. Besides looking different than Affinity Groups, Business Applications are also different because they are not automatically built out based solely on discovered connections and devices. Business Applications can be totally designed and customized by you, and can include any and all of the resources that you identify as critical to your business!

Using Business Applications, you’ll be able to catalog all of your business and mission-critical applications. All of the following are possible:

• Creating Business Applications from scratch or from existing Affinity Groups
• Adding and removing devices and connectivity
• Customizing the resource layout, connections, and their labels
• Saving customized layout(s) and returning to edit them at any time

• Select Applications > Business Applications from the Device42 menu to display a list of existing applications.

• Click on a Business Application Name to view details about the application.

Note: Business Applications now display information about any Application Components associated with the Business Application. (Device42 automatically categorizes application components as Database, Application Layer, Web Server, Load Balancer, or Other.) Application Component information also appears on the Business Application visualization canvas (see below).

• Click View Application to see the visualization of the application.  Click the Edit button at the top right to turn edit mode on.

The page displays the business application name; hover over Application Details to see information about the application. The left panel contains icons for adding devices, affinity groups, or application components to your business application and a menu bar above the icons.  You can also now run a Service Dependencies Report for the Business Application, which details all the communications for the devices within the Business Application.

Click a device, affinity group, or application component object on the canvas to see details about that item. Links in the details box or below the object take you to the view pages for those items.

Add a Business Application

• Select Applications > Business Applications from the Device42 menu to display the applications list, and then click Add Business Application.

• Enter the application Name and select the Application Type (COTS, COTS with Customization, or Custom) and add a Description if wanted.
• Use the magnifying glass icons to select or enter the Technical Application Owner, Business Application Owner, and Responsible Customer or Department.
• Use the format 1w 2d 3h 4m 5s (1 week, 2 days, 3 hours, 4 minutes, and 5 seconds) to denote the time period for DR Recovery Point Objective and DR Recovery Time Objective. The individual terms are optional and numbers must be integers. For example, you can enter 2d 6h to define two days and six hours.
• Select or enter the Migration Group and Criticality, and add any Notes or Tags you want.
• Click Save at the bottom right of the page to save the application and add it to the applications list page.

Note: To edit an existing application, click its Name in the business applications list page, and then click Edit.

Add or Edit Business Application Visualizations

• Select Applications > Business Applications to display the Business Applications list, select an application Name, and then click View Application.
• Device42 displays the visualization canvas.  Click the Edit button at the top right to turn edit mode on.

Add Devices

• To add a device to a business application, drag a Device block (blue) to the canvas – this will open the Add Device box.  You can Search for a device by the device name, service level, tag, or service name.
• Select a device from the list, and then click Add. Device42 adds the device to the canvas.

Add Affinity Groups

• To add an affinity group to an application, drag an Affinity Group block (blue outline) to the canvas – this will bring up the Add Affinity Group box.  You can Search by group type, group name, tag, primary device name, or service name
• When you click on a group in the list, you will see the number of devices in that group.
• Select an affinity group from the list, and then click Add. Device42 adds the Affinity Group with all its devices and connections to the canvas.

Add Application Components

• To add an application component to a business application, drag a Application Component block (white) to the canvas – this will open the Add Application Component box.  You can Search for a component by its name or its device name.
• Select a component from the list, and then click Add. Device42 adds the application component to the canvas.

Delete a Device

To delete a device (or other objects on the canvas), either select the device and press the Delete key, or right-click on a selected device and select Delete from the context menu.

Note: Removing a device does not remove connections on the canvas, nor does it affect calculated information stored in Affinity Groups.

Rename a Device

To rename a device (or other objects on the canvas), select the device, double-click the device name, and type a new name.

Note: The name change does not change the device record and is only for display in this specific Business Application visualization.

Add or Edit Connections in a Visualization

You can add and edit connections between object on the canvas.

1. Hover over a device object to display the object’s connection points (green dots). Click a green dot and drag the connection to a point on any other object.
   
2. To delete a connection, select the connection and press the Delete key, or right-click and select Delete from the context menu.

Note: Deleting a connection does not affect calculated information stored in Affinity Groups.

Name Connections

To name connections, simply click on the connection itself and type the description or name for the connection.

Save a Business Application Visualization

Click the File menu at the top of the canvas and select Save.

Clone or Delete Business Applications

Clone a Business Application

From the Business Applications list page, you can easily clone an existing Business Application. You might want to do this to experiment without editing the original, or as the base of a new Business Application, or even to plan out a future deployment or migration. Follow these steps:

• Select Applications > Business Applications to display the Business Applications list, select the checkbox for the application you want to clone, and then click Clone Business Application.

• Click the Business Application to clone magnifying glass to select (or search for) the application you want to clone.
• Enter the # of Business Applications to make and the name or names (Comma separated names) to give the newly cloned Business Applications and click Clone.

Delete a Business Application

• Select Applications > Business Applications to display the Business Applications list, and select the checkbox for the application you want to delete.
• Select Delete selected Business Application from the Actions menu and click the blue lightning bolt.

Exporting a Business Application for Migration

You can export Business Applications directly for migration by 3rd-party migration software suites. Device42 currently supports export to Microsoft Azure, RiverMeadow, and Carbonite.

Exporting to Carbonite Migrate

Device42 can export one or more of your business applications directly to Carbonite Migrate. For more information about using Carbonite Migrate, see the Carbonite Migrate page.

Exporting to Microsoft Azure Migrate (cloud migrations)

Device42 can export one or more of your business applications directly to the Microsoft Azure cloud platform via Azure Migrate.

For detailed instructions on how to export a business application to the Azure cloud, go to the dedicated Azure Migrate integration page, at https://docs.device42.com/external-integrations/azure-migrate/.

Exporting to RiverMeadow Data Migration

• Select Applications > Business Application, and then select the checkboxes for the applications you want to migrate.

• Select Create Migration for Selected Objects from the Action menu and click the blue lightning bolt.
• This will bring you to the Create Migration Export page. Select RiverMeadow CSV from the Choose target for migration drop-down, and click Export button to export a CSV file with the IP address(es) and credentials for the server instance(s) that power your chosen Business Applications.
  
• Save the exported CSV, and then open it using RiverMeadow to perform your migration.

Support for more migration software is being added and will be released shortly. Should you have any questions, please contact [email protected].

Accessing Business Applications through DOQL

Business applications information is available through our query language (DOQL).

The following views support the applications and relationships in Business Applications:

• view_businessapplication_v1
• view_businessapplicationelement_v1
• view_businessapplicationconnection_v1