Enterprise Architecture (EA) (formerlyApplication Portfolio Management) and the CSDM framework
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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. This insight helps identify redundancies and reduce budgetary costs. EA integrates closely with the Common Service Data Model (CSDM) framework, particularly versions 4.0 and later, to provide standardized data structures and relationships for managing business capabilities, applications, and technology assets.
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Starting with the Xanadu release, the legacy EA Home page has been deprecated for new users and replaced by the Enterprise Architecture Workspace Home page, which offers the same core features and enhanced usability.
Key Features
- Business Portfolio: Tracks defined business capabilities and the supporting business applications, highlighting those that are at risk. It facilitates capability mapping to establish relationships between business capabilities and applications.
- Information Portfolio: Captures detailed asset information as Information Objects linked to business applications. It includes data domains, information objects, database instances, and database catalogs to build a robust application portfolio.
- Application Portfolio: Provides a comprehensive list of business applications with attributes such as category, manufacturer, and type. It supports tracking and managing applications to align with organizational goals.
- Technology Portfolio: Uses metrics to assess the usability, cost, quality, performance, and risk of applications, helping with effective technology portfolio management within the EA Workspace.
- CSDM Integration: EA utilizes and manages key CSDM tables, ensuring alignment with ServiceNow’s standardized data model, enhancing interoperability and reporting capabilities across products.
Practical Considerations
- To fully leverage EA, customers should implement the CSDM framework in stages, ideally using version 4.0 or newer for optimal compatibility.
- Existing users can still access the legacy EA Home page, but new users must adopt the Enterprise Architecture Workspace.
- EA supports defining single, version-agnostic entities that represent all instances, technologies, and data, facilitating consistent planning and reporting.
Key Outcomes
- Improved visibility into application landscapes and their relationships to business capabilities and technology assets.
- Identification and reduction of redundant applications and related costs.
- Enhanced ability to measure application and technology portfolio metrics, including usability, cost, quality, performance, and risk.
- Standardized data and relationships through CSDM, enabling better governance and integration across ServiceNow products.
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.
Enterprise Architecture home page
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.
- Business Portfolio
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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
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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
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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
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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.