Technology Reference Model
Summarize
Summary of Technology Reference Model
The Technology Reference Model (TRM) in Enterprise Architecture helps ServiceNow customers define and enforce standards for software and hardware products across their organizations. It enables management of approved and unapproved technology, reducing security, delivery, and legal risks associated with unapproved software use. Starting with the Xanadu release, the TRM module is accessed via the Enterprise Architecture Workspace.
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By using TRM, organizations can approve or restrict software products and versions, request the introduction of new software, and maintain a comprehensive TRM library. This governance improves security posture, reduces technical debt, and lowers costs.
Key Features
- Software Approval and Restrictions: Define which software products and versions are permitted within the organization.
- Lifecycle Management: Manage products through lifecycle phases such as approved, unapproved, approved with constraints, divest, and evaluation.
- Business Application Integration: Review which business applications use unapproved or out-of-policy software versions to identify compliance gaps.
- Requests and Catalog: Submit, approve, or reject requests to add software or lifecycle phases to the TRM library through an integrated catalog interface.
- Integration with TPM and SAM: Requires Software Asset Management (SAM) Foundation or Professional for full functionality and enables synchronization with Software Asset Management data.
- Flexibility: Allows defining custom software products if SAM integration is not available.
Practical Benefits for ServiceNow Customers
- Establishes clear technology standards to mitigate risks from unapproved software use.
- Provides visibility into software usage across business applications, enabling proactive management.
- Supports governance processes to streamline software introduction and lifecycle management within the enterprise.
- Improves security and compliance posture by enforcing approved software use and version control.
- Helps reduce technical debt and operational costs through better technology standards enforcement.
Additional Considerations
Before deploying TRM, ensure your instance has the SAM Foundation or Professional plugin installed, as TRM depends on these for its core functionality. Review migration documentation carefully when upgrading. For detailed operations like adding or editing products, managing lifecycle requests, and reviewing TRM status, use the dedicated TRM catalog and Technology Portfolio Management pages.
Use the Technology Reference Model (TRM) feature in Enterprise Architecture to define the standards for your software and hardware products and manage unapproved products in your organization.
Starting with the Xanadu release, the legacy Technology Reference Model module is moved to the Enterprise Architecture Workspace. To learn more, see Managing the Technology Reference Model (TRM) in Enterprise Architecture Workspace.
Overview and benefits of a TRM
In your business enterprise, using an unapproved software can create a risk to the organization. The risks can include the following:
- Security risks: The software might be exposed to security issues.
- Delivery risks: There might not be sufficient knowledge on how to support the software.
- Legal risks: A business application might use the software in illegal ways.
You must define the standards for the software to be used. You must define the software versions that are permitted for use in your organization. Also, you must have a way to explore when a non-permitted software is being used within the organization and in which business applications.
- Approve or restrict the use of a software product within the organization.
- Define how versions of the software can be used within the organization.
- Request an introduction of a new software or the business applications, as new requirements arise.
- Maintain TRM library for your organization.
Using the TRM module, you can manage the standards of the technology and set the right guardrail for technology usage. Setting the standards can improve the technical debt, security posture and save costs for the organization.
TRM Product Lifecycle
Each product in the TRM library is associated with a set of life-cycle phases with a start and end date. The life-cycle phases could be approved, unapproved, approved with constraints, Divest, and evaluation.
The TPM home page fetches all the business applications that are being used in your organization. It helps to review the status of the software that is being used. You can understand if any business application is using the software that is not part of the TRM or a software version that is not approved for production. For more information, see Review the TRM lifecycle status in the Technology Portfolio Management page.
TRM and other modules
The TRM module uses a similar module to TPM to search in the TRM library. You can view the software that is part of the TRM library, and initiate a request to add the software or software version to the TRM library.
You can also use the TRM with the Software Asset Management (SAM) plugin. This plugin helps you to fetch or select the products and versions for the TRM library. You can also define your own software products when the Software Asset Management integration module is not available for your instance.