Technology Reference Model

  • Release version: Yokohama
  • Updated January 30, 2025
  • 2 minutes to read
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    Summary of Technology Reference Model

    The Technology Reference Model (TRM) in Enterprise Architecture helps ServiceNow customers define and enforce standards for software and hardware products within their organization. It is essential for managing approved and unapproved software products to mitigate risks such as security vulnerabilities, delivery challenges, and legal compliance issues.

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    Starting with the Xanadu release, the TRM module is integrated into the Enterprise Architecture Workspace for streamlined management.

    Key Features

    • Approval and restriction of software products and versions used in the organization.
    • Monitoring and identification of unapproved software usage across business applications.
    • Requesting introduction of new software products or business applications as organizational needs evolve.
    • Maintaining a centralized TRM library to manage technology standards and guardrails.
    • Tracking product lifecycle phases such as approved, unapproved, approved with constraints, divest, and evaluation, which help manage technology usage status effectively.
    • Integration with Software Asset Management (SAM) plugins enables fetching and selecting software products and versions for TRM, or manual product definition if SAM is unavailable.

    Practical Benefits

    Utilizing TRM helps improve an organization’s technical debt management, enhances security posture, and reduces costs by ensuring only approved software is used. It provides visibility into software usage through lifecycle status reviews, enabling proactive governance of technology standards.

    Important Considerations

    • TRM and Technology Lifecycle Management (TLM) require the SAM Foundation or SAM Professional plugins. Customers without these should contact ServiceNow Support before installation.
    • The TRM module shares search functionality with TLM and supports requests for product and lifecycle additions or approvals through the TRM Catalog.

    Next Steps for Customers

    • Use TRM to define and approve software standards tailored to your organization's needs.
    • Regularly review TRM lifecycle statuses to identify any non-compliant software usage.
    • Manage software introduction requests and lifecycle updates proactively via the TRM Catalog.
    • Integrate TRM with SAM plugins for automated product lifecycle management or define products manually if necessary.

    Use the Technology Reference Model (TRM) feature in Enterprise Architecture to define the standards for your software and hardware products and manage unapproved products in your organization.

    Important:

    Starting with the Xanadu release, the legacy Technology Reference Model module is moved to the Enterprise Architecture Workspace. To learn more, see Managing the Technology Reference Model in Enterprise Architecture Workspace.

    Overview and benefits of a TRM

    In your business enterprise, using an unapproved software can create a risk to the organization. The risks can include the following:

    • Security risks: The software might be exposed to security issues.
    • Delivery risks: There might not be sufficient knowledge on how to support the software.
    • Legal risks: A business application might use the software in illegal ways.

    You must define the standards for the software to be used. You must define the software versions that are permitted for use in your organization. Also, you must have a way to explore when a non-permitted software is being used within the organization and in which business applications.

    Use the TRM module in the Application Portfolio Management to do the following:
    • Approve or restrict the use of a software product within the organization.
    • Define how versions of the software can be used within the organization.
    • Request an introduction of a new software or the business applications, as new requirements arise.
    • Maintain TRM library for your organization.

    Using the TRM module, you can manage the standards of the technology and set the right guardrail for technology usage. Setting the standards can improve the technical debt, security posture and save costs for the organization.

    Figure 1. TRM products view
    TRM products view

    TRM Product Lifecycle

    Each product in the TRM library is associated with a set of life-cycle phases with a start and end date. The life-cycle phases could be approved, unapproved, approved with constraints, Divest, and evaluation.

    The TLM home page fetches all the business applications that are being used in your organization. It helps to review the status of the software that is being used. You can understand if any business application is using the software that is not part of the TRM or a software version that is not approved for production. For more information, see Review TRM lifecycle status in TPM.

    TRM and other modules

    Warning:
    TPM and TRM require installation of either SAM Foundation or SAM Professional. Before installing the SAM Foundation plugin, carefully review the Software Asset Management Foundation plugin migration documentation. Contact ServiceNow Support if you do not have either SAM Foundation or SAM Professional installed on your instance.

    The TRM module uses a similar module to TLM to search in the TRM library. You can view the software that is part of the TRM library, and initiate a request to add the software or software version to the TRM library.

    You can also use the TRM with the Software Asset Management (SAM) plugin. This plugin helps you to fetch or select the products and versions for the TRM library. You can also define your own software products when the Software Asset Management integration module is not available for your instance.