Enterprise Architecture (formerly Application Portfolio Management) and CSDM tables
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Summary of Enterprise Architecture (formerly Application Portfolio Management) and CSDM tables
Enterprise Architecture (EA) in ServiceNow leverages Common Service Data Model (CSDM) tables to manage and relate business capabilities, applications, and information objects. This approach connects planning and design data with operational application services, enabling detailed visibility into application instances across environments such as development, testing, and production. EA uses specific relationships within the Business Application table to associate business applications with their underlying application services without relying on traditional CI relationships.
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Key CSDM Tables Managed by Enterprise Architecture
- Business Capability [cmdbcibusinesscapability]: Defines the business functions and capabilities.
- Business Application [cmdbcibusinessapp]: Represents business applications, linking to platform and application service instances.
- Information Object [cmdbciinformationobject]: Captures data objects related to business applications.
- Mapped Application Service [cmdbciservicediscovered]: Represents discovered application services related to infrastructure and applications.
- SDLC Component [cmdbcisdlccomponent]: Tracks software development lifecycle components relevant to EA.
These tables help map business applications to multiple operational instances, including numerous production deployments, supporting scenarios like large retailers with many application instances across locations.
Products That Enhance Enterprise Architecture
Several ServiceNow products integrate with Enterprise Architecture to enrich data and insights:
- Discovery: Provides detailed hardware and software configuration items (CIs).
- Service Mapping: Details application instance services and their relationships to infrastructure CIs.
- Asset Management: Supplies related product model information, including lifecycle data.
- Software Asset Management (SAM) and Hardware Asset Management (HAM): Offer lifecycle tracking for technology portfolio management.
- Project Portfolio Management (PPM): Displays business application roadmaps incorporating demands, projects, sprints, and epics.
- Agile Development: Links backlog stories and epics to business applications within roadmaps.
Products That Benefit from Enterprise Architecture
Enterprise Architecture enhances the context and functionality of various ServiceNow products by providing business and application context:
- IT Service Management (ITSM): Gains enhanced service context through linked business applications and underlying technologies.
- Information Technology Operations Management (ITOM): Understands application services in the context of business needs and infrastructure.
- Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC): Utilizes business application and information object data to scope audits, assess risks, and manage compliance activities.
- Asset Management: Manages software and hardware lifecycles associated with business applications and services.
Enterprise Architecture manages and uses CSDM tables. Several ServiceNow products benefit from and add value to Enterprise Architecture.
CSDM tables managed by Enterprise Architecture
- Business Capability table [cmdb_ci_business_capability]
- Business Application table [cmdb_ci_business_app]. Note:
Enterprise Architecture uses the Platform and Platform App fields on the Business Application table to establish the relationship between a business application and the underlying application service. Enterprise Architecture manages the Platform Host / Platform App relationship using a reference on the Enterprise Architecture form, not through a CI relationship.
The relationship connects the record of the business application that is used in planning and design with where and how it’s realized operationally, represented by application services. The relationship accounts for each use of a business application in the development, test, and production environments (dev, test, and prod application service instances). Often there are multiple production deployments. For example, a large retailer uses a business application that runs a cash register in each of its 1,000 stores. There are therefore 1,000 production instances of the application service — one per store — for that one business application. See the "CSDM in a nutshell" video for additional discussion of the relationship.
- Information Object table [cmdb_ci_information_object]
CSDM tables used by Enterprise Architecture
- Mapped Application Service table [cmdb_ci_service_discovered]
- Business Capability table [cmdb_ci_business_capability]
- Business Application table [cmdb_ci_business_app]
- Information object table [cmdb_ci_information_object]
- SDLC Component table [cmdb_ci_sdlc_component]
Products that add value to Enterprise Architecture
- Discovery provides details about the hardware and software CIs you are using.
- Service Mapping provides details about the application instance service in the [cmdb_ci_service_discovered] table, relating infrastructure and application [cmdb_ci_appl] CIs.
- Asset Management provides the related product model. Software Asset Management (SAM Foundation) and Hardware Asset Management (HAM) provide life-cycle data for Technology Portfolio Management.
- Project Portfolio Management views the business application roadmaps. Includes demands, projects, sprints and epics.
- Agile Development views the backlog stories and epics of each business application in the application roadmap.
Products that benefit from Enterprise Architecture
- IT Service Management (ITSM): Services have the context of the business and applications, along with the information and technologies layered beneath them.
- Information Technology Operations Management (ITOM): Understands the business context for the application services along with the hardware and software being managed.
- Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC): Auditors can leverage the business applications and related information objects. This helps auditors understand the design-time data sensitivity for scoping audits, measuring risks, and managing audit activities.
- Asset Management: Manages the software and hardware life cycles for business applications and business services.