Where to store Mobile Applications?

[Andrea D]

Where do we store mobile applications in the csdm/cmdb?

Specifically saas type standalone mobile apps that are not part of a platform. We currently have a software product model for them but wish to capture what mobile apps we have available to be deployed to staff via intune and record incidents against them. 

[Mathew Hillyard]

We wish to capture what mobile apps we have available to be deployed to staff via intune and record incidents against them

Even though these apps are standalone, they are a part of the application technology your organisation uses. Therefore in order to provide these applications as a service, you need to define a full CSDM service.

• Business Application - set as SaaS, define a mobile architecture if you don't already have one, that references an Application product model
• Application Service - for the production version of the app
  • A "dummy" Application CI (because it's SaaS) to represent the causal CI for an Incident, that references the Software product model
• Service Offering linked to the Application Service
• Parent service to fit your Service Portfolio taxonomy

This is essential as you will need to track this app through its lifecycle for technology risk, and to identify which business apps need to be replaced or retired as a part of technology strategy.

[Andrea D]

Thanks for your input Mathew on how to map across the csdm modules however the one piece I'm still unsure of is the statement around the dummy ci.

Is this the application service ci you are referring to, or another cmdb table that we would capture a mobile application ci?

Discovered software is in the software package table which does not include a product model nor relates to an incident. Class manager does not appear to include a mobile application table only a web application table?

[Mathew Hillyard]

The structure you could use for this would be:

• Business App [cmdb_ci_business_app] App Name - CI Relationship Consumes::Consumed by with
• Application Service [cmdb_ci_service_ plus whichever type of App Service you required] App Name PROD - CI relationship Depends on::Used by with
• Application [cmdb_ci_appl] App Name

The Application is a dummy CI because your organization presumably didn't develop the mobile app yourselves, so you don't have access to any of its infrastructure - it's basically SaaS - and CSDM isn't there to track the installation of a software package on a device, but is for enterprise apps and infrastructure; however in order to include this in your technology landscape you need a CSDM service structure.

You are right that mobile application is not a baseline CI class. However I would reference this within the Business App as a type of mobile application (You could create a "Mobile" choice for the Install type field, or maybe for the Platform field) then just use the regular application class for the app, as it is a "dummy" CI anyway, and it's likely you won't know what actual type of application it is. But you could just as easily extend the Application class and create a Mobile Application class - I don't see any issue with that either as there isn't one in the baseline.