Enterprise Architecture use case

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  • Updated March 12, 2026
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    Summary of Enterprise Architecture use case

    Enterprise Architecture in ServiceNow enables you to define a unified, version-neutral entity representing all instances, technologies, and data for effective planning and reporting. From the Xanadu release onward, most Enterprise Architecture features, including data certification, application assessments, and total cost of ownership (TCO), are accessed through the Enterprise Architecture Workspace instead of legacy Application Portfolio Management (APM) pages.

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    This use case supports planning and governance activities such as funding, road mapping, risk reporting, and continuous rationalization of business applications. Rationalization is essential for reducing costs, planning technology transformations, and managing mergers or divestitures.

    Key Features

    • Application Life Cycle Management: Register, update, and decommission business applications and their related services and infrastructure. Application services use logical life cycle states consistent with other logical configuration items (CIs).
    • Business Application Portfolio Assessments: Evaluate applications based on metrics and related impacts to guide decision-making.
    • Roadmap Planning: Facilitate creation of new ideas, demands, and projects aligned with enterprise goals.
    • Data Certification: Ensure data accuracy and governance.
    • Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) Calculations: Utilize Financial Management integration for accurate cost analysis.
    • Management of Related Entities: Includes capabilities to manage information objects and business capabilities tables within the CMDB.

    Results

    Enterprise Architecture use case provides a consistent modeling approach through the Common Service Data Model (CSDM), enabling coherent relationships among business applications, application services, and supporting infrastructure. This consistency is critical for automating risk scoring, cost analysis, and other key metrics to support technology planning and governance.

    Technology Portfolio Management (TPM) Use Case

    TPM helps assess risks associated with using software and hardware past their end-of-life (EOL) dates. Leveraging the CSDM framework, TPM calculates risk scores at various levels—from hardware and software product models to application services and business applications—using life-cycle data that can be manually entered, imported, or sourced from Software or Hardware Asset Management licenses.

    TPM Key Features and Risk Calculation

    • Risk scores are calculated hierarchically: hardware/software product models, application services (instances), optional SDLC components, and business applications.
    • Life-cycle phases include vendor-defined stages (e.g., Pre-release, General Availability, End of Life, Obsolete) and organizational internal phases (e.g., Early Adopter, Mainstream, Retiring).
    • Vendor support status affects risk, especially when technologies enter obsolete phases.
    • The framework enables integration with IT Operations Management (ITOM), Service Portfolio Management, and IT Application Management for comprehensive lifecycle and risk management.

    TPM Outcomes

    This structured approach simplifies management of technology life cycles and risk analysis, providing a clear, actionable view of technology risks at the portfolio level. It supports proactive decision-making to mitigate risks associated with outdated or unsupported technologies.

    Enterprise Architecture lets you define a single, version-agnostic entity that represents all instances, technologies, and data used for planning and reporting.

    Important:

    Starting with the Xanadu release, most Enterprise Architecture (formerly Application Portfolio Management) capabilities are available through the Enterprise Architecture Workspace.

    Features such as data certification, application assessments, and total cost of ownership (TCO) are now accessed and managed from the Enterprise Architecture Workspace, not from the legacy APM pages. To learn more about Enterprise Architecture Workspace, see Enterprise Architecture Workspace.

    Enterprise Architecture use case

    You can use a business application for planning and governance activities, such as funding, road mapping, and risk reporting. Rationalizing business applications is a continuous process, and is critically important to reducing costs and planning technology transformations. Rationalizing business applications is also critical for completing mergers, divestitures, or other broad-impact business-led changes.

    Key features of the Enterprise Architecture use case

    The CMDB, when used by the CSDM framework, provides value to Enterprise Architecture in the following ways:

    • Application life cycle management. This includes:
      • Registering a new business application (included in the base system).
      • Updating a business application
      • Decommissioning a business application, including all the related application services and infrastructure. Because application services are logical in nature, they should use the Logical life cycle states. Application services follow the same life cycle guidance as any other logical CI.
    • Business application portfolio assessments based on metrics or related impacts.
    • Roadmap planning and creating new ideas, demands and projects.
    • Data certification process
    • Total cost of ownership (TCO) calculations (using the Financial Management module)
    • Manage the following related entities:
      • Information objects table [cmdb_ci_information_object]
      • Business capabilities table [cmdb_ci_business_capability]

    Results of the Enterprise Architecture use case

    With this use case, CSDM provides Enterprise Architecture a consistent way to model business applications and relate critical data. The use case ensures that the application services (instances) are defined as required for automating the technology risk scores, costs, and other metrics used for analysis.

    TPM use case

    TPM gives you a better understanding of the risks associated with using software and hardware that is at the end-of-life (EOL) date. You can use the details provided by the CSDM framework to determine the risk of using software and hardware that is at EOL. Each product life cycle EOL date is calculated, then combined following the CSDM framework to provide a score at the Business Application level.

    Results of the TPM use case

    The CSDM framework provides a consistent data structure. This consistent data structure makes it easier for you to manage the life cycles of your technology and analyze the combined technology risks.

    Because of the way the CSDM framework is structured, you can leverage many products from ITOM, Service Management (Service Portfolio Management), and IT Application Management (ITAM).

    The risks of using EOL technologies are calculated based on the life cycle of each software and hardware product model identified in the CMDB, and matched with a software and hardware product model.

    You can enter the life-cycle data manually, import it from an external source, or use the data provided with your Software Asset Management Professional or Hardware Asset Management license.

    The risks are calculated and displayed in a hierarchy. Business application is at the top level, SDLC Components are under the business application, then Application Services indicate each deployment (instance), and software and product models are at the lowest level. Risks are calculated in the order shown below, and are based on the time span between the current date and the EOL date.
    Note:
    Configuring SDLC component is optional. Even without SDLC component configuration, you can connect business applications with the application services directly.
    1. Hardware and software product model — Displays the current life-cycle phases, sources, and indicates the specific models at-risk
    2. Application Service level — Displays the combined risk status of all underlying hardware and software product models used in the Application Service (Instance).
    3. SDLC Component — Displays the SDLC components along with the associated application services and business applications
    4. Business application level — Combines all the underlying Application Service (Instances) to determine the overall risk rating at a portfolio level.
    The following information is used to determine the EOL impact to business applications and their installed application services (instances):
    • The business applications used in your organization are all linked to one or more application services. Each of the application services run on one or more technologies or software models.

      The name of the Application Service Software model table is [sn_apm_tpm_service_software_model].

    • The software model has a sequence of life-cycle stages. The life-cycle stages range from the installation date to the retirement date.

      Some business organizations set an internal date based on the life-cycle phase of the software models. These software model phases can be Early Adopter, Mainstream, Declining use, and Retired.

      Similarly, the software vendors might also set a date for the software based on the vendor life-cycle phases, such as Pre-release, General Availability, End of Life, and Obsolete. Vendor support might vary depending on the phase of the technology. For example, when the software model reaches the Obsolete phase, the vendor might stop supporting the technology.

      The Software Model Life cycle table is named [sam_sw_model_lifecycle].