Business Services

Business Services let you build custom maps of your business-critical functions. They can include any combination of devices, resources, application components, and other Business Services that you identify as critical to your operations.

Unlike Application Groups, which are automatically generated from discovered connections and update dynamically, Business Services are static and designed entirely by you. They serve as referenceable documentation of your applications — a stable representation that only changes when you edit it manually or configure alerts to respond to dependency changes.

Building Business Services is typically the final step in the Application Dependency Mapping workflow: after discovery has populated your devices, services, and Application Groups, you assemble them into Business Services that represent how your organization delivers value.

Use Business Services to:

• Create services from scratch or from existing Application Groups.
• Relate Business Services to other Business Services, breaking large services into smaller, reusable components.
• Add and remove devices, resources, and application components.
• Customize the layout, connections, and labels on the visualization canvas.
• Migrate Business Services to third-party platforms like Microsoft Azure.

Explore Existing Business Services

Navigate to Applications > Business Services to view the list page. It shows all your Business Services along with their associated Devices and Application Components. Device42 automatically categorizes Application Components as Database, Application Layer, Web Server, Load Balancer, or Other.

• Click a Business Service to open its info panel. The left Object List panel lets you select other Business Services, and the right Breakdown panel links to sections within the selected Business Service.

  

• Any associated Business Services, Application Groups, Application Components, Resources, Devices, and more are displayed under Info or are accessible from the Breakdown panel.

  

• Click View Application to open the visualization canvas. The left panel provides options for adding items to the Business Service. You can also run a Service Dependencies Report to view all communications between devices in the Business Service.

  

• Click any object on the canvas to see its details. Links in the details panel take you to the full view page for that item.

  

You can also check which Business Services a device belongs to from the device record itself. Open the device's Info tab to see the associated Business Services.

Create a Business Service

From Applications > Business Services, click Create to define a new Business Service or Clone an existing one to use as a starting point.

Fill out the Business Service Form

To create a new Business Service, fill out the Info form with the following details. After saving, you'll have access to the Application Layout canvas to visualize dependencies and relationships between items.

• Enter the application Name and select the Service Type (COTS, COTS with Customization, or Custom).

  

• Add new values if they are not yet available in a dropdown. For example, define a new Service Type by clicking the + button next to the Service Type field. See Edit or Delete a Service Type for more details.

  

• Select the Technical Application Owner, Business Service Owner, and Responsible Customer or Department.

• For DR Recovery Point Objective and DR Recovery Time Objective, use the format 1w 2d 3h 4m 5s (1 week, 2 days, 3 hours, 4 minutes, and 5 seconds). Each term is optional, and all numbers must be integers. For example, enter 2d 6h for a period of two days and six hours.

• Select the Migration Group and Criticality, and add any Notes or Tags.

  

Add and Remove Form Items

From the Info form or the Application Layout canvas, you can associate the following items with your Business Service (in addition to File Attachments and Custom Fields):

• Business Services: Link other Business Services to model service-to-service relationships.
• Devices: Add the physical or virtual machines that support the service.
• Resources: Add cloud or infrastructure resources such as databases and storage.
• Application Components: Add the application layers (web servers, databases, load balancers) that make up the service.

Currently, Application Groups can only be added from the canvas. See Add Application Groups below.

Remove inline items by clicking the trash can icon. If the item was previously saved, you can click the Restore button to undo the removal during the current session.

The Application Layout Canvas

After saving a Business Service, you can open its Application Layout to build and edit dependencies on the visualization canvas. Any items added through the form will already be visible on the canvas.

Click the Edit button on the top right of the canvas to activate edit mode.

From the left panel, drag the Business Service, Device, Resource, Application Group, or Application Component blocks onto the canvas to open a dialog where you can search for and select items to add. You can add multiple items of each type at a time.

The following sections show examples of adding each item to the canvas.

Add Business Services

Add existing Business Services to model service-to-service relationships on the canvas. See Business Service Relationships for more on this feature.

Drag the Business Service block to the canvas to open the Add Business Service box. Search for a Business Service by name, or click the + button to create a new one.

Add Application Components

Application Components represent the logical layers of your application, such as web servers, databases, application servers, and load balancers. Adding them to a Business Service maps out the software architecture behind the service, giving you visibility into which application layers support each business function.

Drag the Application Component block to the canvas to open the Add Application Component dialog. Search for a component by name, or click the + button to create a new one.

Add Application Groups

Application Groups are automatically generated sets of devices and services that share discovered communication dependencies. Adding an Application Group to a Business Service brings in its discovered infrastructure, so you don't need to manually add each device. As discovery finds new dependencies, the Application Group updates automatically.

You can also configure alerts to receive notifications when devices are added to or removed from an Application Group linked to your Business Service.

Drag an Application Group block to the canvas to open the Add Application Group dialog. Search for a group by name, or click the + button to create a new one.

Alternatively, from the Applications > Application Groups list page, select an Application Group and use the Add to Business Service action to link it to an existing Business Service.

Add Devices

Add the physical or virtual machines that power the service to map the underlying infrastructure for capacity planning and impact analysis.

Drag a Device block to the canvas to open the Add Device dialog. Search for a device by name, select it from the list, and click Add. You can also click the + button to create a new device.

Draw Connections

Hover over an item to reveal a green connection point. Click the point and drag to another item to draw a connection line. You can change the line's appearance using the line options dropdown in the toolbar.

Include Text

Double-click anywhere on the canvas to create a text box with a background color.

To label connection lines, click on a connection line and type the description or name of the connection it represents.

Save the Visualization

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

Edit the Visualization

You can modify objects and connections directly on the canvas.

Delete an object: Select it and press the Delete key, or right-click and select Delete from the context menu.

Rename an object: Select it, double-click the name, and type a new name. The renamed label is only for display in this visualization and does not change the underlying record.

Add or edit connections: Hover over an object to display its connection points (green dots). Click a green dot and drag to connect it to another object.

note

Removing or deleting objects and connections on the canvas does not affect data stored in Application Groups.

Business Service Relationships

You can add one Business Service to another to model how higher-level services are composed of smaller, reusable services. This lets you build service hierarchies without duplicating infrastructure details across multiple Business Services.

For example, a "Human Resources" Business Service might contain "Payroll," "Benefits," and "PTO" as child services. A more complex hierarchy might have a "Customer Order Portal" that flows through a "Payment Processing" sub-parent to a "Payment Gateway Service."

Link Business Services from the Info form or the Application Layout canvas. The flow diagram (Sankey chart) below shows parent to child and parent to sub-parent to child relationships, using a custom dashboard imported into Insights+.

To set up this dashboard in your own instance, see Visualize Business Service Relationships in Insights+.

Edit Business Service Values

To update a Business Service, click the Edit button on its view page, make your changes, and click Save.

Edit or Delete a Service Type

From a Business Service's view page, click the name of the Service Type to access its edit and delete options.

• Click Edit to modify the Service Type.

  

• Deleting a Service Type also deletes all Business Services that use it.

  

Clone a Business Service

Clone an existing Business Service to experiment without editing the original, use it as the base of a new service, or plan a future deployment or migration. Cloning also copies the Custom Field values.

From the Business Services list page, select the checkbox for the service you want to clone and click Clone Business Service.

• Click the Business Services to clone magnifying glass to select or search for the service you want to clone.
• Enter the # of Business Services to create and provide names as Comma separated names. Click Clone.

Alerts

You can set up alerts to receive notifications when Application Group dependencies change within a Business Service. To create an alert, navigate to Analytics > Setup Alerts, click Create, and select Business Service as the Rule Type. The available triggers are:

• New Application Group Dependency Found
• Application Group Dependency Removed

Auto Apply Changes

Check the Auto Apply changes box to automatically add or remove connections when Application Group dependencies change. You will still receive a notification for each change.

When Auto Apply changes is disabled (the default), you receive a notification with the option to manually add or remove the connection.

For full details on configuring alert options, escalation profiles, and notification templates, see Alerts and Notifications.

Custom Fields

Custom fields let you store additional information about your Business Services beyond the default form fields.

To create a custom field, navigate to Tools > Custom Fields, select Business Services from the list, and click Create. Select one of the following field types:

• Text
• Number
• Date
• Yes/No
• URL
• Picklist
• JSON
• Markup
• Related Field: Use this option to link the custom field to an existing CI type within Device42.

Cloud Accounts are available as a related field type, allowing you to link a Business Service to a Cloud Account.

Delete a Business Service

From the Applications > Business Services page, select the Business Service(s) you want to delete and choose one of the delete options from the Actions dropdown.

Migrate Business Services

You can export Business Services for migration to third-party platforms. Device42 currently supports export to Microsoft Azure, RiverMeadow, and Carbonite.

• From Applications > Business Services, select the applications you want to migrate and choose the Create Migration for Selected Objects action from the Actions dropdown.

  

• Choose between RiverMeadow CSV and Microsoft Azure Migrate from the dropdown.

  

Export to Microsoft Azure Migrate (Cloud Migrations)

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

For detailed instructions, see the Azure Migrate integration page.

Export to RiverMeadow

Click the Export button to export a CSV file with the IP address(es) and credentials for the server instance(s) that power your chosen Business Services.

Save the exported CSV and then open it using RiverMeadow to perform your migration.

tip

Support for additional migration platforms is being added. Contact support@device42.com with questions.

Access Business Services Through DOQL

You can query Business Services data using the Device42 Object Query Language (DOQL). The following views expose Business Service applications and relationships:

• view_businessapplication_v1
• view_businessapplicationelement_v1
• view_businessapplicationconnection_v1

Business Services vs Business Applications

Business Services were previously called "Business Applications," and Application Groups were previously called "Affinity Groups." If you encounter these older terms in the UI or in existing documentation, they refer to the same features. See Calculation Rules (previously AppFocus Filters) for details on the updated Application Dependency Mapping flow.

Visualize Business Service Relationships in Insights+

You can visualize the Business Service relationships described above using a flow diagram (Sankey chart) in Insights+. Import the pre-built dashboard into Insights+ by uploading the ZIP file. The dashboard includes a pre-configured dataset and chart for mapping parent-child and multi-level Business Service associations.

Download Business Service Relationships Dashboard