Business applications vs software?

[Steve V]

A question around how to properly manage holistic catalog of applications/software....

We are keeping "business applications" in APM, scoped to include: enterprise platforms, homegrown applications - i.e. apps that 1) have end-users, and 2) lives beyond the desktop (w/ shared data capabilities)

We are left with the long list of "desktop applications" (e.g. SnagIt, Wacom Tablet, Excel, Photoshop, etc) we want to track/manage...  but wondering the appropriate place? Is it sensible to put these in business applications (cmdb_ci_business_app) or should these instead be put managed in software table (cmdb_ci_spkg)?

[Anil Lande]

Hi,

In general if some of your desktop applications are responsible for your business or productivity and they are business critical then you can list them in Business Applications. But as these are some software's you have to manage them as part of SAM and the record should be created in cmdb_ci_spkg table.

We can say Some software's can be Business Applications. These software's must be available in both tables. As part of SAM you have to manage these software's in different way like Managing Licenses, Entitlements, renew subscriptions etc. 

Thanks,

Anil Lande 

[Anil Lande]

Also check below link, you may find it helpful.

https://community.servicenow.com/community?id=community_question&sys_id=5031d7f1db513fc823f4a345ca96...

Thanks,

Anil Lande

[Jon Miller1 · Accepted solution]

You're following a similar path to us, Steve, and you have a similar definition of Business Applications. As Enterprise Architect, I'm mostly concerned with those so haven't attempted to implement an inventory of desktop software in the system (yet). But there are multiple spread-sheet lists of that software floating around and, per my understanding from our strategic ServiceNow partner, I plan to implement them in Product Catalog > Software Models at some point. If you take a look at that form you'll see that, not only can you maintain the inventory of desktop software, it automatically associates each record with a Product Catalog entry to allow the software to be requested via a Service Request. This is all done without the need for SAM (similar to how we're maintaining Business Applications without APM).

I'll be interested to know how you get on if you go down this path. I suspect we'll be following you not far behind!

Jon

[Steve V]

Thanks... it does look like this is the correct answer.

https://community.servicenow.com/community?id=community_question&sys_id=9f535ff71b9d505017d162c4bd4bcb78

I'll look into it