5.0

Configuring Applications 5
An application is a type of container resource that defines an interdependent set of hardware and software
components that delivers a specific capability that supports your business. You build application topologies
to determine how applications are affected when one or more of the resources that they contain experience
problems.
After you configure an application, you can view real-time analysis for any or all of the affected resources in
the application, understand where in the application problems arise, and determine how problems spread to
other resources.
This chapter includes the following topics:
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“Understanding Applications,” on page 55
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“Add an Application,” on page 56
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“Creating and Assigning Application Tags,” on page 57
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“Use a Tag to Find an Application,” on page 58
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“Modifying Applications,” on page 59
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“Modifying Application Tags,” on page 60
Understanding Applications
In vCenter Operations Manager, applications are three-level hierarchies. Each application contains one or more
tiers, and each tier contains one or more resources.
A tier is a group of resources that performs a specific task in an application. For example, you can group all of
your database servers together in a tier. The resources that make up a tier can also contain other resources, but
they do not have to.
When you define application hierarchies for your resources, vCenter Operations Manager can calculate and
store fingerprints for your applications. When a KPI for an application or tier violates a threshold,
vCenter Operations Manager examines the events that preceded the violation. If it finds enough related
information, such as other anomalies, it captures the set of events that preceded the violation. This captured
series of events is called a fingerprint.
With fingerprints, vCenter Operations Manager can monitor events in the future and, if it finds a similar series
of events, issue a predictive alert to warn you that a KPI violation is likely to occur. The information that
vCenter Operations Manager obtains after it generates the fingerprint assists you in correcting the problem.
vCenter Operations Manager generates fingerprints only for applications. Because the only type of attribute
that you can assign directly to an application or tier is a super metric, vCenter Operations Manager generates
fingerprints only if you assign super metrics to a tier or application and mark them as KPIs. See “Creating
Super Metric Packages,” on page 43.
VMware, Inc.
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