Rationalization of business applications
Summarize
Summary of Rationalization of Business Applications
Application rationalization in ServiceNow enables Enterprise Architects to evaluate and manage business applications effectively. It helps determine whether to invest in, sustain, migrate, or retire applications by analyzing multiple indicator scores. You can access this functionality via the Application Rationalization page, which offers both bubble chart and list views for visualizing and managing your application portfolio.
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Applications marked as Retired or in End of Life lifecycle stages are excluded from default views but can be accessed by adjusting a system property with assistance from your ServiceNow account manager. Additionally, insights generated through Now Assist enhance decision-making.
Key Features
- Application Analysis: Analyze business applications using composite indicator scores based on data from configured sources and fiscal periods.
- Disposition Management: Set and manage planned dispositions (invest, sustain, migrate, retire) for each application.
- Life-Cycle Details: Add and update life-cycle information for business applications.
- Visualization Options: Use interactive bubble charts to view application positioning by scores, facilitating portfolio decisions, or use list views for detailed score overviews.
- Insights on Enterprise Architecture Workspace: Insight cards highlight candidate applications for retirement, migration, investment, or those with disposition mismatches, helping prioritize actions.
- Indicator Scores: Scores reflect the latest fiscal period by default, with options to select other periods. Scores include technical debt (measuring compliance with Technology Reference Model standards) and technology lifecycle risk (assessing proximity to end-of-support or end-of-life).
Practical Benefits for ServiceNow Customers
- Improved Decision-Making: Rationalization provides a structured approach to optimize your application portfolio, reducing redundancies and technical debt.
- Comprehensive Visibility: Visual and list-based views facilitate a clear understanding of application health, risks, and investment opportunities.
- Actionable Insights: Insight cards and indicator scores guide prioritization for application lifecycle actions, ensuring alignment with business goals.
- Customizable Scoring: Scores are dynamically calculated using normalized, weighted indicators, enabling tailored evaluations aligned with your fiscal calendar.
- Lifecycle Risk Awareness: Technology lifecycle risk scores help identify applications relying on technologies nearing end-of-life, enabling proactive migration or retirement planning.
As an Enterprise Architect, you can use application rationalization to evaluate your business applications.
Application rationalization overview
Rationalize all business applications in a category and decide whether to invest, sustain, migrate, or retire an application.
Select the application rationalization icon (
) to navigate to the Application Rationalization page.
- Analyze business applications based on multiple scores.
- Create a demand for a business application.
- Set the planned disposition of a business application.
- Add life-cycle details to an existing business application.
You can view all the business applications in a bubble chart view or in a list view. However, business applications marked as Retired or in End of Life lifecycle stage aren’t displayed on the Application Rationalization bubble chart or list view pages. However, you can view those business applications by updating the sn_apm_ws.business_application_default_filter system property. Contact your ServiceNow® account service manager to update the system property.
You can also generate insights into business applications using Now Assist. For information, see Generate insights into business applications.
Application rationalization insights on the Enterprise Architecture Workspace home page
The application rationalization feature of Application Portfolio Management also provides insights for your business applications. To see the insight cards, navigate to and select the Insights section. The insights cards display information based on scores derived from application rationalization. The following insight cards are available:
- Candidate business applications for retirement-business applications that might fit for retirement based on their indicator scores.
- Candidate business applications for migration-business applications that might fit for migration based on their indicator scores.
- Candidate business applications for investment-business applications that might fit for investment based on their indicator scores.
- Candidate business applications with mismatch planned disposition-business application with mismatch between their planned disposition and their indicator scores.
On selecting a particular card, the Application Rationalization page appears to display the relevant business application data, based on your selection.
Indicator scores based on fiscal period
All the indicator scores are displayed according to the latest fiscal period, by default. You can also select a different fiscal period from the Scores for fiscal period list. Your fiscal period preferences are saved and applied the next time you visit the page.
The latest fiscal period is derived from the apm_app_indicator_score list. The fiscal period type (month, quarter, or year) is derived from the system property com.glide.fiscal_calendar.fiscal_unit.