Enterprise Architecture (EA) (formerlyApplication Portfolio Management) and the CSDM framework

  • Release version: Xanadu
  • Updated August 1, 2024
  • 2 minutes to read
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    Summary of Enterprise Architecture (EA) (formerly Application Portfolio Management) and the CSDM framework

    Enterprise Architecture (EA), previously known as Application Portfolio Management (APM), enables ServiceNow customers to gain a comprehensive understanding of their organization’s applications. By leveraging EA with the Common Service Data Model (CSDM) framework, customers can identify application redundancies, optimize costs, and align IT assets with business capabilities effectively. This solution integrates key CSDM entities to support strategic planning, portfolio management, and risk assessment.

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    Starting with the Xanadu release, the legacy Enterprise Architecture Home page has been deprecated and replaced by the Enterprise Architecture Workspace Home page, offering the same features for new activations.

    Key Features

    • Business Portfolio: Tracks defined business capabilities and assesses the business applications supporting them, highlighting any at-risk applications. It supports capability mapping to establish configuration item (CI) relationships between business capabilities and applications.
    • Information Portfolio: Captures asset information as information objects linked to business applications, creating a dynamic application portfolio. It includes data domains, information objects, database instances, and database catalogs.
    • Application Portfolio: Provides a detailed list of applications supporting business capabilities, including attributes such as category, manufacturer, and application type. It helps monitor usability, cost, quality, performance, and risk metrics.
    • Technology Portfolio: Measures key metrics related to application usability, cost, quality, performance, and risk, supporting technology portfolio management within Enterprise Architecture Workspace.
    • CSDM Table Integration: EA utilizes and manages core CSDM tables, ensuring alignment with ServiceNow’s data model and facilitating integration with other ServiceNow products.

    Practical Considerations for ServiceNow Customers

    • Ensure you are using CSDM 4.0 or later for compatibility; otherwise, refer to the Rome release documentation.
    • Leverage the Enterprise Architecture Workspace Home page for a modern and supported user experience.
    • Use capability mapping to connect business capabilities with applications for clearer portfolio insights.
    • Utilize the comprehensive data captured in portfolios to inform decision-making about application rationalization, budgeting, and risk management.
    • Implement the CSDM framework progressively to align with your organizational needs and maximize EA benefits.

    Use Enterprise Architecture (formerly APM) to gain a comprehensive understanding of your organization's applications so you can identify redundancies and decrease budgetary costs. The goal of this product view is to help you to understand how Enterprise Architecture key entities work with the core CSDM framework.

    Note:
    If you do not use CSDM 4.0 or later versions, see the Rome documentation for CSDM. For implementing CSDM framework, see Implementing the CSDM framework in stages.

    Enterprise Architecture home page

    Important:

    Starting with the Xanadu release, the legacy Enterprise Architecture (formerly Application Portfolio Management) Home page has been deprecated. However, if you are an existing user of Enterprise Architecture (formerly Application Portfolio Management), you can still view the legacy Home page. If you are a new activation user, the legacy Home page is not available.

    You can leverage the same features provided by the Application Portfolio Management Home page by using the Enterprise Architecture Workspace Home page. To learn more about Enterprise Architecture Workspace, see Enterprise Architecture Workspace.

    The Enterprise Architecture home page organizes many of the CSDM tables used by Enterprise Architecture.

    Enterprise Architecture home page presents business, information, application, and technology portfolios.

    Business Portfolio

    View the number of defined business capabilities that have been or will be assessed, and the number of business applications that support capabilities but are at-risk.

    For more information about using capability mapping to establish a configuration item (CI) relationship between the business capability and the business applications, see [product].

    Information Portfolio

    Capture the asset information as information objects. You can connect the information object to your business applications to create an application portfolio that you can use at any time.

    The information portfolio links to the following data:
    • Data Domains: Total number of records in the Data Domain table [sn_apm_data_domain].
    • Information Objects: Total number of records in the Information Object table [cmdb_ci_information_object].
    • Database Instances: Total number of records in the Database Instance table [cmdb_ci_db_instance].
    • Database Catalogs: Total number of records in the Database Catalog table [cmdb_ci_db_catalog].

    For more information about the information portfolio and the information portfolio model, see [product].

    Application Portfolio

    Track the applications that support your business capabilities and effectively manage them to meet the goals of your organization. The portfolio provides a list of applications with information such as their category, manufacturer, and type. Select Applications to navigate to the list view of business applications in your organization.

    For more information about measuring the usability, cost, quality, performance, and risk of applications, see [product].

    Technology Portfolio

    Use metrics to measure the usability, cost, quality, performance, and risk of applications.

    For more information about technology portfolio management and how it relates to business applications, see Managing the Technology Portfolio Management (TPM) in Enterprise Architecture Workspace.