In LoadMaster 360, the concept of applications is elevated to the top. Our customers load balance their applications, such as Microsoft Exchange, Citrix StoreFront, or websites, through the LoadMaster. Virtual Services are created on the LoadMaster that handle these complex rules, but LoadMaster 360 simplifies that view. The mapping of applications provides valuable insights into not only your specific Virtual Services but how they create the whole application itself. All the analytics, performance, and health information for all the Virtual Services are brought together to provide you with a view you care about.

Applications can be complex. They can be made up of multiple Virtual Services across different IP addresses/ports and even Real Servers. Management of these can be difficult, so LoadMaster 360 provides you with the ability to group all Virtual Services that are used to deliver a single application into one and report status across the application as a whole rather than just the component Virtual Services. Applications add a higher layer to the hierarchy of objects that simplifies the management of application delivery.

When you add a LoadMaster to LoadMaster 360 for the first time, you receive a notification prompting you to map your Virtual Services.

You can map Virtual Services to an application in two ways:

  • Quick Mapping: A swift way to map Virtual Services. This is a 1 to 1 mapping.
  • Manual Mapping: Create applications and assign up to 15 Virtual Services to a single application.

Application mapping

The Application mapping screen (Applications > Application mapping) allows you to manage your applications. You can:

  • Create a new application
  • Change the name of an application
  • Move a Virtual Service from one application to another existing application
  • Move a Virtual Service to a newly-created application
  • Remove a Virtual Service from an application
  • Delete an application

Limitations

There are some limitations to be aware of:
  • You cannot exceed the number of available assets (LoadMasters and applications) available for your license type
  • You can map up to 15 Virtual Services per application.
  • You cannot have an application that spans multiple LoadMasters
  • You cannot split a Virtual Service from its SubVSs
  • You cannot change the LoadMaster for an existing application that is already assigned to a LoadMaster.
  • For existing applications that are already associated with a LoadMaster, you can only map Virtual Services that belong to that LoadMaster to the associated application. If you create a new application, you can map any Virtual Service to it initially because it has no association with a LoadMaster. Once you map a Virtual Service to an application, the application gets associated with the relevant LoadMaster.

Things to note

Here are some further things to note:
  • If an application does not contain any Virtual Services, it is hidden in the inventory views. However, the application remains available in the Application mapping screen and can be used again or deleted.
  • When a Virtual Service is moved from one application to another, the historical telemetry data of the Virtual Service is moved to the new application.
  • When a Virtual Service moves from one application to another, it is still possible to resolve any unresolved issues that occurred before the change.
If the configuration changes on the LoadMaster side:
  • If a new Virtual Service is created, it is not mapped. Map the Virtual Service to an application to ensure it gets monitored.
  • If a Virtual Service is deleted from the LoadMaster, it is automatically removed from the application in LoadMaster 360.

Changes indicator

At the top of the Application mapping screen there is an indicator that displays:
  • No changes detected: No unsaved changes have been made to the application mappings.
  • Unreviewed change(s): There are unsaved changes that must be reviewed before being applied. The number of unsaved changes is also displayed in brackets.

User Interface (UI) controls

There are filter drop-down menus at the top of the Application mapping screen that allow you to select a LoadMaster (or LoadMasters) and/or an application (or applications) to filter the list by.

You can also filter the list by entering a search term. The search term filtering applies to both the application and Virtual Service names.

There are Undo and Redo options available to use as needed.

Assets

The number of used assets versus the total available assets (based on your license) is shown in the top-right. The number of used assets increases when you assign a Virtual Service to a blank application. If you click Assets in the top-right, an overview of your organization's current asset usage for the current subscription period is shown. The total assets limit is shared across all asset types (LoadMasters and applications). There is a graphical representation of the number of used versus available assets. The number of mapped applications and LoadMasters is shown. You can click Go to Usage & billing to access that page to get further details.

Unmapped Virtual Services

The panel on the left shows any Unmapped virtual services. You can show and hide this panel by clicking the arrow icon at the top of it. Unmapped Virtual Services do not contribute to metrics or data shown. Issues are not reported in the Incidents center for unmapped Virtual Services. They are essentially unmonitored until they are part of an application.

When a Virtual Service is unmapped, the telemetry data for this Virtual Service in the original application is removed. While a Virtual Service is unmapped, no telemetry data is collected. When an unmapped Virtual Service is moved to a new application, the existing telemetry data (all data collected before the Virtual Service was unmapped) is imported into the new application.

If there is an unmapped Virtual Service, a pop-up message displays to inform you about this. Clicking Go to Application Mapping displays the Application mapping page. You can click Snooze to snooze the notification. If you unmap another Virtual Service after snoozing the message, the pop-up message appears again.
Note: If the message was snoozed more than seven days ago, it appears again if there are still unmapped Virtual Services.

Review changes

The Review Changes button allows you to review any actions you have performed before you confirm them. Clicking Confirm on the Review changes screen will apply the changes. You may need to refresh the page after confirming the changes to see the updates on the Applications screen.

Note: The Review Changes button is disabled if no changes have been made.

Creating and modifying applications

The Create application button allows you to create a new application.

You can add a Virtual Service to an empty application by clicking the plus icon and selecting the relevant Virtual Service. The list of Virtual Services is categorized by LoadMaster.

You can rename or delete an application by clicking the dots to the right of the application.

If a Virtual Service contains SubVSs, the number of SubVSs is displayed in brackets after the Virtual Service name. You can expand a Virtual Service containing SubVSs to view details of the parent and child Virtual Services (SubVSs).

You can unmap a Virtual Service from an application by clicking the x icon to the right of the Virtual Service name. Unmapped Virtual Services display in the pane on the left.

You can drag and drop unmapped Virtual Services from the pane on the left by clicking the dots to the left of the Virtual Service name and dragging the Virtual Service to an application on the right. The valid applications that the Virtual Service can be mapped to are highlighted in blue as you drag the Virtual Service over them.

Quick mapping

The Quick Mapping button allows you to map any unmapped Virtual Services to an application of the same name as the Virtual Service. If the Virtual Service has SubVSs, the SubVSs are mapped to a single application using the existing Virtual Service (parent) name.

When you click Quick Mapping, a pop-up message appears that says “Virtual Services and their Sub Virtual services will be mapped to applications using the existing virtual service name.”. Click Continue to map the unmapped Virtual Services to an application.