Enterprise Architecture (formerly Application Portfolio Management) and CSDM tables - Legacy

  • Release version: Zurich
  • Updated July 31, 2025
  • 2 minutes to read
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    Summary of Enterprise Architecture (formerly Application Portfolio Management) and CSDM tables

    Enterprise Architecture utilizes CSDM tables to enhance the management of business applications and their operational relationships. It establishes connections between business applications and underlying application services to support effective planning and design across development, test, and production environments.

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    Key Features

    • Business Capability Table: [cmdbcibusinesscapability]
    • Business Application Table: [cmdbcibusinessapp] - This table includes Platform and Platform App fields to define the relationship between business applications and application services.
    • Information Object Table: [cmdbciinformationobject]

    Enterprise Architecture manages relationships through a reference on the form rather than CI relationships, ensuring a clear link between business applications and their operational instances.

    Key Outcomes

    Integrating Enterprise Architecture with other ServiceNow products enhances its value:

    • Discovery: Provides details on hardware and software CIs.
    • Service Mapping: Connects infrastructure with application services.
    • Asset Management: Offers related product models and lifecycle data.
    • Project Portfolio Management: Facilitates viewing business application roadmaps, including demands and projects.
    • Agile Development: Displays backlog stories and epics within application roadmaps.

    Enterprise Architecture also supports ITSM, ITOM, GRC, and Asset Management by providing essential context for business applications, aiding in risk management, auditing, and lifecycle management of business services.

    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]

    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.