Objective: $$$ Savings per month through transparency about the applications and their business relevancy to improve business support and plan the roadmap to the target landscape. Importing data from Excel sheets.
Key Questions
- Who is using applications where: Do we have support gaps? Do we have redundancies?
- In which applications to invest, which to divest (application lifecycle management)
- How well are business capabilities supported by applications?
- How do you visualize the metrics and the business benefits of the software and apps?
- Who is providing the application? Is this an effective setup?
- Which apps are open source or outdated?
- How does the application portfolio evolve? Is this in line with our strategic business priorities?
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Benefits of Application Portfolio Management
But first, what is APM? APM, or Application Portfolio Management, has emerged in companies with mid- to large-sized information technology organizations since the 1990s.
Application portfolio management is a framework for managing enterprise IT software applications and software-based services. APM provides managers with an inventory of the company's software applications and metrics to illustrate the business benefits of each application.
The goal of APM is to gain insight into the value, cost, risk, and performance of applications, enabling strategic decisions about their future.
APM bridges the gap between IT and business by connecting applications to strategic objectives, budgets, and digital transformation projects.
An example query report.
How do you measure Enterprise IT
Organizations have built an extensive and often complex IT landscape. Without proper management, this leads to inefficiency and high costs. APM helps prevent or repair this.
APM is key in cloud migrations, security and compliance management, achieving ESG objectives, and budget optimization. This allows an organization to respond more quickly and effectively to changing market conditions and regulations.
Licensing, maintenance, and infrastructure costs are significantly reduced when the application landscape is streamlined.
A central and up-to-date application register provides IT and business complete insight into the application landscape. This promotes collaboration, accelerates decision-making, and facilitates audits.
How to Create an Overview of Your Applications?
USE CASE
We will show you how to build on your application portfolio in a few steps, meaning you can measure and manage the applications and show and improve their value for the business.
1. Import Data
You can enter data manually. Still, as most organizations have numerous applications and large amounts of data in their systems, you can import data from files (CSV, XLS, XML, etc.) and via REST APIs.
Here you can download an CSV file example that is often used as a basis to create an import file.
Example data that can be used.
Below, you see how you can import a CSV file in the Architecture Repository.
Imported data in the Architecture Repository application.
To keep this example easy and understandable, we work with 10 applications only. In practice, you can easily place 200 applications, with 30+ attributes per application, on one visualization.
2. Create Model and Relationships
Suppose the imported data is a list of applications, then there might be an enumerated list of values in the column relationships and servers. Dragon1 uses these values to generate relationships. The screenshot below shows relationships (associations) generated for applications and servers.
A relationship between an application and a server.
If you go to the Visual Designer, open the cabinet, and click on the model, a model showing visually the relationships between the applications and servers will be generated.
Model showing relationships between domains, applications, and servers.
3. Creating Views
If creating many relationships for many entities, the model will contain information that is not interesting to everyone. Therefore, we create views (filters) on the model. We link the views to the button on the visualization, so that a specific view of interest to a stakeholder is displayed when the button is clicked.
Below is an example view created.
4. Creating a Visualization Template
On Dragon1, you can create visualization templates. A template is a drawing canvas that contains visual items. A visual item is a shape configured to show data from a source, like a view, model, or folder in a cabinet.
Below are three visual items configured and placed on a canvas. We have clicked on one of the visual items, so the configuration is shown. The rectangle for the domain is used to group the applications. You can choose whatever entity class or attribute you want for grouping.
Visualization template with visual items for data-aware shapes and buttons for views.
You can place buttons on a visualization that check the attribute value of entities and show icons with tooltips accordingly. Below is an example of a GDPR button, turning a visualization into a management tool.
A configured button on a visualization template.
5. Publishing the Visualization To The Viewer
When you click on the View Data button in the Visual Designer or you watch the visualization in the viewer (as a stakeholder), your visual items from the template are interpreted, and the application portfolio management visualization is generated. Now, you can click on the button to leave comments and search for values of attributes in the visualization.
Below you see the result when you click the red GDPR View button. Per application, an icon indicates whether sensitive data is stored, read, or updated.
Application Portfolio Management GDPR View.
Below is an example where the attribute Owner is searched for. The visualization shows that Dr. Spock owns the applications EPIC and BARNEY. Next, the user clicked on the application EPIC. In the bar on the left, the details of that application are shown.
An Application Portfolio Management Owner View.
Being able to search and filter information on the visualization opens a door to a world of freedom. You can now ask and answer all kinds of questions like:
- Which applications are not compliant with a certain standard?
- For which applications do we use more licenses than we bought?
- Which applications should already have been replaced because of outdated technology?
- Which applications should be abandoned because they do not add value to the business?
- Can I replace a certain application, and what is the impact of that change?
Continuous Monitoring
Your applications are a living system that needs periodic updates, reporting, and reassessments. Implement improvements through change management and agile portfolio management.
Technical Debt and Maintenance Status
Another key component of APM is understanding the technical debt that each application carries. Technical debt occurs when suboptimal choices are made during application development or maintenance, such as using outdated technologies, undocumented code, or a lack of automation in testing. This debt adds to maintenance costs, increases the risk of failure, and slows innovation.
In APM, it is essential to assess the maintenance status of applications. This can be done through tools that monitor bugs, support tickets, and legacy code. IT teams can take proactive steps to eliminate technical debt and reduce long-term costs by categorizing applications based on their technical health. This can be achieved through a phased approach to refactoring or replacing applications that have outlived their usefulness or are no longer feasible to modernize.
Example data that can be used.
Application Security Status
Application security is one of the biggest concerns for businesses today, particularly in an era where cyber threats and privacy issues are becoming increasingly prevalent. Many applications contain sensitive information or can provide an entry point for hackers.
APM must therefore map the security status of applications. This can be achieved by linking applications to security assessments, such as penetration tests, vulnerability scans, and compliance checks (for example, in the areas of GDPR or ISO standards).
Monitoring the security status helps organizations to quickly identify and remediate vulnerabilities before they become a risk to the organization. It also provides insight into which applications no longer meet security standards and therefore need to be migrated or phased out.
Security audits should be done periodically, with APM tools helping to automatically monitor whether applications are in line with the latest security requirements.
Why use Dragon1 for Application Portfolio Management
Application Portfolio Management is not a one-off exercise, but an ongoing process that helps streamline IT, increase strategic agility, and realize digital transformation. A sustainable and future-proof application landscape is created by linking APM to business strategy, architecture, and compliance.
APM offers clear added value compared to pure IT management, positioning itself as an indispensable instrument in modern IT governance. Organizations that utilize APM strategically are better equipped to handle technological change, market pressure, and ambitious growth goals.
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