You define applications under Networking > App Definitions: Applications. Application definitions enable you to attach a business relevancy to all traffic that goes through your network. To simplify configuration, the definition of an application is a separate task in RiOS 9.0 and later. A separate application definition allows you to configure multiple rules using the same application without having to repeat the application definition for each rule.

Application definitions also enable you to group applications, so that you can configure and reuse a single rule for multiple applications. Using an application group in a rule can reduce the number of rules significantly.

RiOS 9.0 and later separate application definition from the QoS rules.

We strongly recommend that you define applications and push application definitions from a SteelCentral Controller for SteelHead to the appliances.

Defining an application means that you group together a set of criteria to match certain traffic. After you define the criteria, you can use an application to configure QoS and path selection rules.