Application Visibility Troubleshooting

Application visibility is essential for understanding how networked applications perform and ensuring an optimal user experience. When issues arise, such as inaccurate application classification, missing telemetry, or unexpected traffic patterns, troubleshooting becomes critical. This process involves verifying configuration requirements, analyzing data collected by gateways, APs, and switches, and leveraging tools like Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) and App Performance Monitoring. By systematically identifying and resolving visibility gaps, administrators can maintain accurate insights into application health and performance across the network.

Note:

Users can access application visibility troubleshooting via the Application planet after selecting a site, and then an application. Clicking the icon leads to the troubleshooting page.

Application Visibility Role-Based Access Control

In the Application Visibility Troubleshooting experience, the Role-Based Access Control, or RBAC, enhancements ensure that the monitoring charts, activity views, and session‑level insights shown within the troubleshooting workflow respect each user’s assigned permissions. In Application Visibility Troubleshooting experience, users will only see the charts, tiles, and drill‑down paths they are authorized to access, such as specific applications, devices, or session details, preventing unauthorized visibility into sensitive traffic patterns. As a result, the troubleshooting interface becomes dynamically role‑aware, improving security and ensuring that troubleshooting data is exposed only to the users who should have access to it.

Health Card

Health Charts provide a detailed view of application performance by collecting and updating data every 15 minutes from Access Points (APs) and gateways. This frequent data refresh ensures near real-time visibility into network conditions, allowing administrators to monitor and respond to performance issues promptly. The charts are designed to reflect client-to-application latency, which is a key metric in assessing user experience and network responsiveness. Also, users can view data over 3 hours, 1 day, 7 days, or 30 days. The time range can be adjusted by clicking on the edit icon.

To simplify analysis, latency data is categorized into four distinct health levels: Good, Fair, Poor, and Unknown. These categories are determined based on latency thresholds. The visual representation uses color-coded area charts to highlight performance trends over time, making it easier to identify patterns or anomalies. If data is missing or unavailable from the APs or gateways, the charts display an Unknown status, typically shown as gray bars.

Health is calculated based on the Client to Application Latency. For more information, refer to How Application Health Is Calculated.

For the network tab, the charts will display the following information:

  • Throughput (bps)—Indicates the amount of data transmitted and received per second.

  • Clients (Connected)—Indicates the number of active clients using the application.

  • Client to Application Latency (RTT)—Indicates the round-trip time (RTT) between the client device and the application server.

  • Client to Gateway Latency—Indicates the network delay between the client device and the gateway.

Note:

For CX wired clients, health is displayed as gray bars.

Figure 1: Health Charts in the Network Tab

Users can also access latency metrics for websites in all relevant UI components, such as the charts in the Health Metrics section, and the latency values in the side panel. Latency charts for websites help users diagnose why a website is slow, correlate latency with experience scores, and troubleshoot issues with full visibility across the Application Visibility and Troubleshooting workflows.

Figure 2: Website Information in Health Card

For the UXI tab, the charts will display the following information:

  • Latency—Indicates the amount of time (in milliseconds) it takes for a packet to travel from the client to the destination and back (round-trip time).

  • Packet Loss—Indicates the percentage of packets that fail to reach their destination.

  • Jitter—Represents the variation in packet arrival times (in milliseconds).

  • HTTP GET (Elapsed Time)—Indicates the time taken to complete an HTTP GET request, typically used to assess web application responsiveness.

Figure 3: Health Charts in the UXI Tab

Client-Level Application Visibility

Client-Level Application Visibility is available through the Clients planet, enabling administrators to select individual wired or wireless clients for detailed application-level analysis. After selecting a client and entering the troubleshooting dashboard, the charts display application-specific data, including performance metrics such as signal quality, throughput, transmission (TX) and reception (RX) rates, and radio frame statistics. These insights help network teams diagnose performance issues and understand how each client experiences network services.

In cases where a client has not accessed a particular application during the selected time range, the corresponding charts will display zero values. Additionally, if telemetry data is unavailable, the charts will show Unknown status, typically represented by gray bars. This level of granularity enables more effective troubleshooting and ensures that network teams can identify and address client-specific performance anomalies with precision.

Figure 4: Troubleshooting for an application for a specific client

  • The graphs displayed when expanding the Performance card depend on the context, as well as the type of client and application selected.

    • Throughout—The upstream and downstream data throughput line chart is displayed for the application. Hover over the chart to view a tooltip showing details about the Transmitted and Received data, along with the corresponding date and time.

    • Signal Quality—Describes the reliability and clarity of the wireless connection between the device and an access point. This determines the actual user experience, such as data speed and connection stability.

    • Frames—Displays the trend of frames transmitted through the interface of the client for the time period selected in the timeline. Hover over the chart to view a tooltip showing details about the error and drop percentage and the corresponding date and time within the selected timeline.

    • Tx/Rx Rate—Displays the speed at which data is sent and received over a network connection, measured in Mbps. Tx rate is the speed at which data is transmitted from the device to the network. Rx rate is the speed at which data is received by the device from the network.

    • Radio—The wireless frequency band or radio interface used by the client to connect to the network. This field specifies whether the client is connected via the 2.4 GHz or 5 GHz band, or any another available wireless interface.

    • Figure 5: Troubleshooting for an application for a specific client with different health levels

    Client-Level WLAN Application Experience provides detailed visibility into how individual applications perform for a specific WLAN client during troubleshooting. Within the Troubleshooting View, it presents application-aware network metrics such as latency, jitter, packet loss, and Mean Opinion Score (MOS) using intuitive time-series charts, enabling administrators to correlate WLAN conditions with real user experience. By focusing on a single client and application context, the feature helps identify whether performance issues are driven by wireless network quality or application behavior, allowing faster and more accurate root-cause analysis.

    Figure 6: Troubleshooting for an application for a specific client with different health levels

    Note:

    For CX, at the site level, the troubleshooting tab displays the Throughput and Clients charts. At the client level, the troubleshooting tab displays the Throughput and Frames charts.

    Usage Card

    The Usage card on the Application dashboard displays a graph that tracks network usage focusing on throughput (bps) and connected clients. It helps identify peak usage periods or potential connectivity issues. Data is updated every 15 minutes from APs, gateways, and switches. You can hover over the chart to view a tool-tip showing details about the Throughput and Clients, along with the corresponding date and time within the selected timeline.

    The Usage Card can be utilized for troubleshooting; however, it is not accessible through the Troubleshooting section. To access the Usage Card:

    1. In the HPE Aruba Networking Central landing page, select a site from the Sites menu.

    2. Click on the Application planet.

    3. Select an application from the Application List.

      The Usage Card will be available in the Application page.

    Figure 7: Usage Card from Application as a Sun