Enterprise Architecture (formerly Application Portfolio Management) and CSDM tables

  • Release version: Yokohama
  • Updated January 30, 2025
  • 2 minutes to read
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    Summary of Enterprise Architecture (formerly Application Portfolio Management) and CSDM tables

    Enterprise Architecture (EA) in ServiceNow leverages Common Service Data Model (CSDM) tables to manage business capabilities, applications, and related information objects. This capability helps organizations plan, design, and operate their application portfolios by linking business applications with their underlying application services and operational environments.

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    Key Features

    • CSDM tables managed by Enterprise Architecture:
      • Business Capability [cmdbcibusinesscapability]: Defines core business capabilities.
      • Business Application [cmdbcibusinessapp]: Holds details of business applications, including Platform and Platform App fields that link to application services.
      • Information Object [cmdbciinformationobject]: Captures related information objects.
      • Mapped Application Service [cmdbciservicediscovered]: Represents discovered application services mapped to infrastructure.
      • SDLC Component [cmdbcisdlccomponent]: Tracks software development lifecycle components.
    • Platform Host / Platform App Relationship: Managed via references on the Enterprise Architecture form rather than traditional CI relationships, enabling connection between business application records and their multiple instances in development, testing, and production environments.
    • Multiple Instances Handling: Supports scenarios with numerous production deployments, such as a business application running on thousands of store registers, by representing each deployment as a separate application service instance.

    Integration with Other ServiceNow Products

    • Products that enhance Enterprise Architecture:
      • Discovery: Provides hardware and software CI details.
      • Service Mapping: Supplies data on application instance services, linking infrastructure and application CIs.
      • Asset Management: Connects product models relevant to applications.
      • Software and Hardware Asset Management (SAM Foundation and HAM): Offers lifecycle data critical for Technology Portfolio Management.
      • Project Portfolio Management: Integrates business application roadmaps with demands, projects, sprints, and epics.
      • Agile Development: Aligns backlog stories and epics with business application roadmaps.
    • Products that benefit from Enterprise Architecture:
      • IT Service Management (ITSM): Gains business context around services, applications, and underlying technologies.
      • Information Technology Operations Management (ITOM): Understands business context for application services and managed hardware/software.
      • Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC): Uses business application data to scope audits, assess risks, and manage audit activities effectively.
      • Asset Management: Manages software and hardware lifecycles linked to business applications and services.

    Key Outcomes

    By using Enterprise Architecture with CSDM tables and integrating related ServiceNow products, customers can:

    • Effectively plan and manage their business application portfolios with clear relationships to operational services.
    • Gain comprehensive visibility into application deployments across multiple environments and instances.
    • Leverage detailed infrastructure, asset, and project data to enhance planning, risk management, and compliance activities.
    • Improve collaboration across IT and business teams by aligning application roadmaps with agile and project workflows.

    Enterprise Architecture manages and uses CSDM tables. Several ServiceNow products benefit from and add value to Enterprise Architecture.

    CSDM tables managed by Enterprise Architecture

    1. Business Capability table [cmdb_ci_business_capability]
    2. Business Application table [cmdb_ci_business_app].
      Note:

      Enterprise Architecture uses the Platform and Platform App fields on the Business Application table to establish the relationship between a business application and the underlying application service. Enterprise Architecture manages the Platform Host / Platform App relationship using a reference on the Enterprise Architecture form, not through a CI relationship.

      The relationship connects the record of the business application that is used in planning and design with where and how it’s realized operationally, represented by application services. The relationship accounts for each use of a business application in the development, test, and production environments (dev, test, and prod application service instances). Often there are multiple production deployments. For example, a large retailer uses a business application that runs a cash register in each of its 1,000 stores. There are therefore 1,000 production instances of the application service — one per store — for that one business application. See the "CSDM in a nutshell" video for additional discussion of the relationship.

    3. Information Object table [cmdb_ci_information_object]

    CSDM tables managed by APM.

    CSDM tables used by Enterprise Architecture

    • Mapped Application Service table [cmdb_ci_service_discovered]
    • Business Capability table [cmdb_ci_business_capability]
    • Business Application table [cmdb_ci_business_app]
    • Information object table [cmdb_ci_information_object]
    • SDLC Component table [cmdb_ci_sdlc_component]

    Products that add value to Enterprise Architecture

    When you use Enterprise Architecture with any of the following ServiceNow products, you increase the value you get from Enterprise Architecture:
    • Discovery provides details about the hardware and software CIs you are using.
    • Service Mapping provides details about the application instance service in the [cmdb_ci_service_discovered] table, relating infrastructure and application [cmdb_ci_appl] CIs.
    • Asset Management provides the related product model. Software Asset Management (SAM Foundation) and Hardware Asset Management (HAM) provide life-cycle data for Technology Portfolio Management.
    • Project Portfolio Management views the business application roadmaps. Includes demands, projects, sprints and epics.
    • Agile Development views the backlog stories and epics of each business application in the application roadmap.

    Products that benefit from Enterprise Architecture

    The following ServiceNow products gain value from Enterprise Architecture:
    • IT Service Management (ITSM): Services have the context of the business and applications, along with the information and technologies layered beneath them.
    • Information Technology Operations Management (ITOM): Understands the business context for the application services along with the hardware and software being managed.
    • Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC): Auditors can leverage the business applications and related information objects. This helps auditors understand the design-time data sensitivity for scoping audits, measuring risks, and managing audit activities.
    • Asset Management: Manages the software and hardware life cycles for business applications and business services.