> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://help.highlight.net/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://help.highlight.net/functionality/application-awareness-tm.md).

# Application Awareness™

## Overview

As businesses digitally transform, customer experiences increasingly depend on the quality and performance of the applications that support customer interactions. Application awareness is a suite of tools to:

* provide insight into the performance of business critical applications, wherever they're hosted
* manage shadow IT and contain cloud sprawl
* ensure every customer interaction is a good experience and that every business manager can see clearly

AppVis™ complements NBAR (Network-Based Application Recognition) and Flow.

## AppVis summary

AppVis™ provides detailed application data including logos and categories, first/last seen dates, usage totals and locations. Both NBAR and Flow configuration is needed on the monitored device to enable AppVis™ in Highlight.

[Find out more about AppVis](https://help.highlight.net/status/appvis)

## NBAR summary

NBAR requires no additional collection agent. We utilise the Cisco NBAR feature to obtain an analysis of applications. Standard SNMP is used to gather the data and it graphs a breakdown of applications detected in a 30 minute period and displayed on the Details page either in 1 hour intervals (default) or in 30 minute intervals.

[Read further details about Cisco's NBAR.](https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/collateral/ios-nx-os-software/network-based-application-recognition-nbar/qa_c67-697963.html)

## Flow summary

Highlight Flow provides visibility of applications running across the network, and Top Sources and Destinations of traffic. Drill‐downs allow users to understand traffic patterns, trends and anomalies. Aligning Flow reporting with other elements of the existing Highlight interface means you can correlate Flow activity with other metrics such as traffic levels or network delay, all of which can impact user experience.

Flow is a 'Push' technology, whereby the monitored device will send a continual stream of Flow data to a Flow Collector.

Flow reports details of the 20 top talkers or applications and the top 10 conversations for each. Application identification is done using protocol/port.

For more information on the Flow Details page refer to [Understanding Flow.](https://help.highlight.net/details/bearers-traffic-analysis/flow-specifics)

[Read more about Cisco NetFlow.](https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/ios-nx-os-software/ios-netflow/index.html)

## Application reporting comparison table

| NBAR                      | Flow                                                | AppVis                                  |
| ------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------- | --------------------------------------- |
| Cisco only                | Any compatible Flow device (IPFIX, NetFlow, J-Flow) | Cisco only                              |
| No extra Device required  | Requires Flow Collector                             | Requires Flow Collector                 |
| SNMP Polled               | Routers send to Collector over UDP 9996             | Routers send to Collector over UDP 9996 |
| 30 or 60 minute summaries | 60 minute summaries                                 | Totals updated every 30 minutes         |
| Graphs only               | Graphs and Text                                     | Text only                               |
| By watch only             | By watch only                                       | By folder, broken down by location      |
| No statistics available   | Hourly statistics available                         | Cumulative statistics                   |
| Month/Week/Day graphs     | Month/Week/Day graphs                               | Totals for month, week or day           |
| Application names         | Applications and IP addresses                       | Application names and logos             |
| No further analysis       | Top 10 conversations per IP/Application             | Class of Service breakdown              |

## Related

* [Traffic Analysis: NBAR and Flow](https://help.highlight.net/details/bearers-traffic-analysis/nbar-and-flow)
* [AppVis feature description](https://help.highlight.net/status/appvis)


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