What is the best approach for Enterprise Architecture Business Applications lifecycle Management ?

[JPrasad]

We are implementing enterprise architecture and we need to implement the process for lifecycle of a business applications.

As is process is very complex and we need to replicate the same to the ServiceNow as per customer.
There are around 8-10 personas in current process who will be performing this lifecycle and compliance management for an application.

For example - 

There are specific users who has to approve before marking business application as operational.
There are specific set of users who has to update specific set of compliance attributes in specific application lifecycle stage.
Certain set of validations and information has to be updated before marking an application as retired.

What is the best robust and scalable way to approach this requirement ?
I have below in my mind.

Approach 1.  Implement a catalog item /  record producer which will manage these lifecycle. We will write code or run different type of validations on catalog item and at an access level of business application they will have read access on architecture workspace where they can see all the information but updates are controlled through catalog item /  record producer.
Rather than writing code and ACLs on the Enterprise architecture workspace UI its better to write on catalog item is my view.
Implement ACL where real security is needed such as cost information etc if required.

Approach 2. Implement all validations , access controls or ACLs (wherever really necessary) , scripts , business rules etc on Enterprise architecture workspace UI.
I am personally against it and trying to avoid.

My approach is keeping workspace UI clean and users can read information from workspace UI only but going forward all updates should happen from catalog item or record producers.
Enterprise architects or only few set of users can update workspace UI directly.

One forward risk I see is that relate list features , allowing read only access at EA workspace levle might not allow users to access related list features. However that is okay as few personas will still have access to these features for any analysis. For ex - Enterprise Architects.

What is your view ?
Do we have any document where ServiceNow recommendation is listed ?

[Mathew Hillyard]

Hi @JPrasad 

Firstly, CSDM has the concept of Life Cycles (Stage, and Stage Status), but these are designed to be fixed and cannot be extended or customised. This functionality is essentially to clean up the mess of so many different State values across the CMDB and elsewhere.

Therefore, if you want to implement a complex process for managing Business Applications, you really have two choices:

1. Find the most suitable Life Cycle Stage/Life Cycle Stage Status for each activity and run your business logic from that position.
2. Don't use Life Cycles at all, and customise the existing Install status choices.

Make an architectural decision on what you will use for the lifecycle before building anything. I would lean toward option 1 as if you choose option 2 you will have to at some point back it out to use Life Cycles in future.

Onto the build.

Approvals are a system-wide function, just work out the required business logic to generate the necessary approvals and when. Your example of marking a Business Application as operational could be as simple as using the OOB Catalog Item "Register a Business Application" - or it may require something custom.

Any kind of compliance on the currency of Business Application attributes should be handled via CMDB Data Manager Policies (which replace the legacy Data Certification application). I believe these can now be accessed directly from within Enterprise Architecture based on a recent update: https://www.servicenow.com/docs/r/application-portfolio-management/eaw-explore-data-cert.html

With the above, your option 2 is not required, and is very much not advised as there will be licensing implications opening up access, and unless the users are materially involved in a Business Application (business or technical stakeholder) then they shouldn't be able to access Enterprise Architecture.

I hope this helps!
Mat

[yogesh41]

HI,

This is interesting learning for Product team. I just wanted to highlight some of the existing Catalog Items available for Request and Retire Business Application. They are very well configurable to accommodate business specific requirement through Catalog configuration.  

Yogesh