iApp–Full Application Lifecycle Management

iApp certainly can do a lot for an organization by allowing them to optimize their network in a matter of minutes, but they also provide full application lifecycle management as well.

The user can make changes to their configuration simply by opening the application service instance previously created by the iApp template and make the necessary edits. The user interface is exactly the same as they used to originally deploy the application. Why is that so important? Context.

ADCs are part of the core network infrastructure and are used to optimize the delivery of multiple mission critical applications at the same time. Think of how many applications a single organization has and you will understand why the median number of virtual servers per device is thirty and pools around twenty. That’s already over fifty objects and we haven’t even talked about monitors, profiles, iRules and policies. When those objects are organized by type, rather than by relation, day to day management, troubleshooting and even reporting becomes very difficult.

iApp puts objects into context. In the components view, the user is presented with a hierarchical display of objects related to that application instance. The health status of an object is also displayed giving the user a quick visual reference of the application’s overall health. This quick inspection is useful in identifying which application component is having trouble, focusing troubleshooting efforts and inevitably resulting in faster resolution.

The components view also provides the user with speedy access to enable or disable a single or multiple instances or application resource. This management task is commonly performed during server maintenance windows. An instance is disabled to redirect connections to other resources so an administrator can apply a hot fix or application upgrade without impacting end-users. Once complete and the instance is ready to receive connections, the administrator simply enables the node. This scenario accounts for nearly twenty five percent of the user’s interaction with the device, but without context, determining which instances apply to which application can be difficult and time consuming.

And finally, an analytics view is available to provide the user with key metrics for capacity planning, troubleshooting, performance, as well as ROI reporting. A large number of statistics can be collected and viewed at a granular level of the user’s choice.