Maintain the technology portfolio
The technology portfolio summarizes all information about IT capabilities, components, and virtual andphysical servers. The applications in the application portfolio use multiple components and rely on servers for their deployment. Components support IT capabilities that are critical to the IT infrastructure. As a user with the Portfolio Manager user profile, you can add new applications to the repository and maintain the data on applications that are already in the system.
Describe your technology portfolio:
- Document the IT capabilities that your technology portfolio supports. Once the IT capabilities are in your repository, you can specify which components support which IT capabilities.
- Describe the components that are used by the applications your IT portfolio. Document which vendorsprovide the components.
- Describe the virtual servers and physical servers that deploy the applications in the IT portfolio. Specify the locations of the physical servers.
Add IT capabilities and assign components to them: In the navigation panel, click Technology Architecture > IT Capabilities to open the data workbench for IT capabilities. The explorer shows the hierarchy of IT capabilities.
The IT Capability Landscape view displays all existing IT capabilities in your IT portfolio. The visualization shows IT capabilities on the first level of the hierarchy as the outer box. Subordinate IT capabilities are nested in their parent IT capability. Components that support an IT capability are displayed below the IT capability they support in the explorer.
- To add a new IT capability to the first level of the explorer hierarchy, click the Technical Capabilities node. In the IT Capability Landscape view add a new IT capability that is located on the first level of the IT capability hierarchy. The IT capability is on the first level of the explorer hierarchy and is visualized as an outer box in the view.
- To add a subordinate IT capability, click an IT capability in the explorer and open the Sub-Domains view.
- To add components already in the repository to an IT capability, go to Technology Architecture > Components to open the data workbench for components. Select a component and click the navigate button. Go to the Technology Context tab and open the Components view. You can define the IT capabilities that the component provides.
Add a new component: In the navigation panel, click Technology Architecture > Components to open the data workbench for components. Add a new component via the New button, or edit a component displayed in the data table by selecting the checkbox for the object you want to edit and click the Edit
button. Specify the most important information by navigating through the wizard via the Go to Step field displayed at the bottom of the wizard.
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Go to Step > Basic Data: (mandatory) Define the Name, Version, Start Date, and End Date fields. .
- Object State: (recommended) Describes the operational status of the component and indicates whether it is actively used, planned to be used, or has been used in the past. The component's start and end dates indicate the planned period of activity for the object. Therefore object state should be changed from Plan to Active once the start date is reached.
- Release Status: (recommended) Describes the level of approval of the documented information about the component. A component cannot be deleted when it has an approved release status. It cannot be edited when it has a retired release status.
- Authorized Access tab: The users in the user groups specified for the component will be able to see the component in Alfabet FastLane. Only users assigned to a user profile that has read/write permissions may edit the component.
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Define the users and organizations that have a role for the component: Go to Step > Responsibilities: Describes the functional role that a user or organization has for the component. Roles are defined for informational purposes only and provide detail about users or organizations that may have information about or a stake in the object. The user or organization is not required to maintain the component's data. The definition of a role for an object does not impact access rights. Click Person to associate a user with the component. The user can have one of the following roles or a custom role added by your company: Architect, Business Owner, IT Owner and Stakeholder. Click Organization to associate an organization with the component. The organization can have on of the following role or a custom role added by your company: Business Owner, IT Owner, Operations, and Stakeholder.
Assigning users and organizations to roles is critical to understanding responsibility for assets in the IT and is required to answer the business question Who is responsible for our assets.
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Evaluate the component's indicators: Go to Step > Evaluations: An evaluation is a measurement of the performance of a component. Preconfigured indicator types and possibly custom indicator types added by your company are available to evaluate. The indicator types are bundled in groups called evaluation types. You can define values for most indicator types. Some indicator types are configured to be computed. You can trigger the automatic execution of these indicators via the Calculate button.
Select an indicator type and click Edit Indicator or click Group Edit to open a dialog where all indicator types can be edited.
- Document the component lifecycle: Go to Step > Lifecycle: A component lifecycle describes the different phases of the planned schedule of the application. The lifecycle phases are Manufacturer Supported and Manufacturer Extended Support. The active period of the component is the time between the component's start and end date. Each lifecycle phase is aligned with the proceeding and succeeding lifecycle phase that has been defined. Typically, the object state is set to Active during the lifecycle phase Production.
- Specify the IT capabilities that the component supports: Go to Technology Architecture > IT Capabilities to open the data workbench for IT capabilities. Select a component and click the navigate button. Go to the Technical Context tab and open the Components view. You can define the IT capabilities that the component supports.
Add physical servers: In the navigation panel, click Technology Architecture > Physical Servers to open the data workbench for physical servers. Add a new physical server via the New button, or edit a physical server displayed in the data table by selecting the checkbox for the object you want to edit and click the Edit
button. Define the location where the physical server is deployed in the Location field.
Add virtual servers: In the navigation panel, click Technology Architecture > Virtual Servers to open the data workbench for virtual servers. Add a new virtual server via the New button, or edit a virtual server displayed in the data table by selecting the checkbox for the object you want to edit and click the Edit
button. Define the physical server that deploys the virtual server in the Physical Server field.