DPM 'Build' Tab Items - relationship between Business Application and Product

[Jonah Piascik]

Looking for clarification on pre-requisite data model build requirements to properly display items in the 'Build' tab in a DPM (Digital Portfolio Management) Portfolio.  There seems to be an implied relationship between Business Application (cmdb_ci_business_app) and Product (cmdb_application_product_model) based on a match on 'name', but would like to understand more about how this relationship works (now and potentially in future DPM product development roadmap).  We are currently on Tokyo.

[Doron Orbach · Accepted solution]

Hi,

When using APM we plan to add an automatic relation creation between Business Application (cmdb_ci_business_app) and Product (cmdb_application_product_model) -> actually application_model. it will be creating an application model with the same name of the business application. Customers will be able however to link to a different application model (and in this case we will connect to this model).

Thanks,

Doron

[Jon Miller1]

I'm struggling with this myself, Jonah. It looks like ServiceNow are in the middle of making changes in this area of the Commons Service Data Model (CSDM) and haven't completed it yet. What I see in CSDM 4.0 is that there can be a "contains" relationship between Business Application (cmdb_ci_business_app) and SDLC Component (cmdb_ci_sdlc_component) and a similar "contains" relationship between SDLC Component and Application Service. I'm trying to work out how to model SAP modules (SD, PP, MM, etc.) in the CSDM and SDLC Component would appear to be the logical place. That aligns to the "Business Application contains SDLC Component" relationship but "SDLC Component contains Application Service" makes no sense.

It sounds like you have gone down a similar path with using applications and software models but CSDM states that "manual population of the Application table is not recommended". We want to track changes against an SAP module so, if not Application, figured that's another reason to use SDLC Component. But CSDM says that it "is not an operational CI and should not be used in incident, problem and change".

So, at this point, I have no clear path forward for modeling the SAP modules per the CSDM.

I know this wasn't your immediate question and I've probably raised more questions than I've answered. But I'm hoping that my analysis of alignment to the CSDM helps to explain what the "official" answer appears to be.

Are you recording Change Requests against "Product" today? If so, how are you doing that? The Application Models table isn't a CI so can't be used.

-Jon

[Jonah Piascik]

Hey Jon - 

Thanks for the info.  Not sure how the SDLC components fit into the DPM workspace design, but if "Business Application" is part of that it might tie into some of the work I'm doing now.

Regarding Change Management, we are not recording changes against 'Product'.  We track changes against 'Application Service' and below CIs (Servers, Databases, Network Equipment Switches, etc).  For Application Services, we will usually have one defined for each environment (PRD, TST, DEV) and then in some cases we have parent/child relationship for platform/application.  I think this is where you might consider having your SAP modules.

[Jon Miller1]

I must admit, Jonah, that we don't use the DPM workspace and I made the assumption that it's aligned to the Common Service Data Model. That maybe an incorrect assumption (in which case, shame on ServiceNow!). I may enable the workspace in my PDI to see if it's something we should/could be using.

Thanks for the response on Change. One of the options I'm considering is eliminating Product altogether and just doing, like you say, change against Application Services. In the case of SAP, SAP ECC is the Business Application and SAP ECC (Prod), SAP ECC (Test), SAP (Dev), etc. are the Application Services. All infrastructure (databases, servers, etc.) support those services. The modules (SD, MM, PP, etc.) are really just logical functions within the SAP ECC application so don't have dedicated infrastructure supporting them. So I'm not sure it makes sense to define them as application services, though I guess I could. The fundamental question I need to get an answer to internally is, do we need different change approvals for each of the modules? Or can the approval be defined at the application service level? If it's the former, I'll have to commit to a solution, even if it's not 100% aligned to the CSDM.

[Doron Orbach · Accepted solution]

Hi,

When using APM we plan to add an automatic relation creation between Business Application (cmdb_ci_business_app) and Product (cmdb_application_product_model) -> actually application_model. it will be creating an application model with the same name of the business application. Customers will be able however to link to a different application model (and in this case we will connect to this model).

Thanks,

Doron