Application Dependency Mapping (ADM) in ServiceNow?

Growing up in El Salvador, driving directions were generally based on landmarks, like: “Turn right where the old mango tree used to be.” When the landscape changed, you were in for an adventure!

Thank goodness GoogleMaps keeps things updated and Dijkstra's algorithm hopefully keeps us on the right path. Tools like this have revolutionized how we get directions. And we desperately needed them, as change is the only constant for driving directions.

The same goes for application dependency mapping, ServiceNow is the answer.

Configuration Changes

Perpetual changes in the technology environment—driven by bots, automation, transactions, and humans—constantly challenge the integrity of our configurations. Agile practices and DevSecOps further accelerate change. And amid all this change, the configuration manager is asked:

“Can you give me the current dependency map for this application?”

What Dependency?

This is a very complex question!

The dependency map completely depends on perspective.

What are you planning to use the mapping for?

Here are some examples of perspectives for application dependency mapping:

1. Service Delivery (service dependency mapping)
2. Disaster Recovery (disaster recovery dependency mapping)
3. Network Segmentation (cybersecurity dependency mapping)
4. Cloud Migration (workload and data use dependencies to guide cloud migration strategy)
5. Audit (to provide full documentation for application audits and their underlying dependencies from an audit perspective)
6. Data Management (data flow dependency mapping)

Warning: You should not assume that one dependency map can be used for another perspective without understanding the underlying details of the approach. For example, discovery schedules can affect map accuracy, which is not a problem for a dependency map designed for use in a physical inventory, but that would impact our ability to use the map for real-time automation.

What Boundary?

In addition to perspective, the configuration manager has to know the answers to the following questions to provide you with the right map:

• What scope are you interested in?
• Can you define your boundary? 
• Are all the application dependencies necessary, to include all the real-time integrations and the constellation of batch jobs that have dependencies on the application? 
• Where do you want to prune this application map so that we can keep consistent application definitions? 
• What are the criteria by which you define the boundary so that we can always compare apples to apples? 
• Are you interested in discovering the dependency of services inside of machines? 

Why ServiceNow??

There are many technical reasons to use ServiceNow application mapping, here are just a few:

• ServiceNow’s intelligent and adaptive Discovery is not a significant burden on infrastructure
• ServiceNow’s patterns and classification of discovered elements are complete and accurate
• ServiceNow provides vertical integration of configuration items into the Common Service Data Model (CSDM) 3.0, allowing for all business elements to be modeled against technology use

Your perspective and use case will determine the mapping principles for the inclusion and exclusion of components and their relationship types.

The best practices framework chosen for the perspective will determine how you define each one of the perspective elements. The breadth of the CSDM and the platform functionality will allow you to bring this perspective into the light, not only as a map but in the context of workbenches, performance analytics, workflows, and many other platform capabilities.

The CSDM is evolving to become the de facto unifying model for the definition of the digital product, providing us with a common understanding of how the different perspectives and their relationships, principles, normalization rules, lifecycle maturation roadmaps, terminology, and more interact to create value. 

The CSDM is the common foundation that allows these perspectives to coexist, enabling different stakeholders to understand how applications fuel the business to create value from their unique vantage point while maintaining alignment across each perspective