What's In AppFlow? (Source: Citrix)
Background
AppFlow is a new application performance monitoring (APM) standard that was introduced by Citrix in May, 2011 and endorsed by leading APM tool vendors. ServicePilot is the latest vendor to endorse this standard. AppFlow leverages the open IETF standard for core packet data (NetFlow/IPFIX). IPFIX was derived from NetFlow version 9, and AppFlow is based on IPFIX RFC 5101 
and RFC 5102 .
The AppFlow standard defines various IPFIX templates to emit flow records. The main classification between the templates is:
- IPv4 or IPv6 flow records
- Layer 4 (TCP) information or Layer 7 Application level information (e.g., HTTP)
- Ingress / Egress flow
For additional information see www.appflow.org and the Citrix white paper entitled, “AppFlow: Next Generation Application Performance Monitoring” .
The Benefits of AppFlow
The AppFlow standard provides several significant benefits for users that can enhance end to end application performance monitoring, reduce the costs of APM, and simplify deployment.
Enhancing APM: The boundaries of the datacenter are disappearing with the adoption of cloud services and the increasing use of mobile access devices. In the past, the only way APM tool vendors could get the detailed application specific data (OSI model, level 7) was to offer costly “network taps”. The Citrix(R) NetScaler application delivery controller (ADC) includes a feature that can analyze the traffic that is coming into NetScaler and generate AppFlow records. ServicePilot has developed a Windows AppFlow probe that works with any real or virtualized Windows server. The probe also generates AppFlow records. The application performance information provided by AppFlow can be collected from NetScaler and/or Windows servers and sent to ServicePilot 360 or any third party tool that supports AppFlow.
Reducing the Costs of APM: The network taps use deep packet inspection (DPI) to collect application-specific information from every flow on the network. They capture vast amounts of packet data that has to be stored and processed in a network device or appliance with analysis and reports provided in the associated APM tools. Each appliance is quite expensive and the tools are proprietary. AppFlow is an open standard, so it will be implemented in a variety of ways. Standards democratize data and facilitate increased options in the market; thereby reducing the costs for providing more comprehensive APM.
Simplifying APM: Some APM tools require special agents that must be deployed on each device. This makes deployment complicated and tedious. APM tools that require network taps for packet capture must be located at strategic points on the network to efficiently process all the packet data. AppFlow records can be collected from any NetFlow enabled device; therefore, it is much easier to deploy APM tools that leverage AppFlow records. AppFlow is also inherently cloud friendly. Users can make the transition to virtualized cloud-ready infrastructure without losing visibility.