Register Every Application Record in the Application Inventory

This chapter explains how every Application’s record is registered and maintained in the Application Inventory, how that registration makes the Application visible across the enterprise, and how the Application’s cost and funding are recorded.

Why Registration Matters

An Application that is documented but not registered is visible only to those who already know where to look. Registration in the Application Inventory, also known as the Application Registry, makes the Application part of the enterprise’s governed knowledge: countable, comparable, and connected to everything else the enterprise manages.

How the Record Flows Across the Enterprise

Registration completes a chain that begins with the Application’s documentation:

17. Application Documentation captures everything about the Application.

18. The Application Record is populated from that documentation.

19. The Application Inventory holds the records of all Applications.

20. Application Portfolio Management and the Enterprise Model use the inventory to analyze Applications as a portfolio and to relate them to capabilities, data, Integrations, technologies, vendors, and Services.

21. Optional downstream Applications can then be fed from the Enterprise Model, should the enterprise choose; for example, an enterprise that has a Configuration Management Database (CMDB) can feed it from the Enterprise Model and align it with discovered details.

Through registration, each Application also becomes visible to Technology Portfolio Management, which can see which technologies each Application depends on.

Establish Registration and Maintenance of the Record

• Register the Application at intake, as described in the chapter “Register Every New Application at Intake — Before It Is Built or Bought.”

• Complete the record as the Application progresses through the SDLC, so that it is fully populated before its first Production Deployment.

• Update the record with every Release, and keep it aligned with the Application Documentation.

• Update the record’s lifecycle status as the Application moves through its life, from Proposed to Active and, once Full Application Retirement is complete, to Retired.

Record the Application’s Cost and Funding

Include, in the Application Record and its documentation, the Application’s cost and funding information, such as its cost center, its funding source, and its run cost, using the financial attributes the enterprise’s Application Inventory defines. This information lets Application Portfolio Management understand each Application’s total cost of ownership and make informed investment, rationalization, and retirement decisions.

Document and Share the Registration

Record the Application’s Semantic Identifier and the location of its documentation in the Application Record, and the Application Record’s location in the documentation, so that each leads directly to the other.

Best Practice: Register Every Application Record in the Application Inventory

It is a best practice to both establish and document the solution for an Application’s visibility to the enterprise: register its record in the Application Inventory from intake, complete and maintain it with every Release, include its cost and funding, and link the record and the documentation to each other.

Benefits: Registration makes every Application visible to portfolio management, architecture, risk, finance, and technology management, which is what allows the enterprise to manage its Applications as a whole rather than one at a time. Feeding the Enterprise Model from a well-maintained inventory gives every downstream use of Application information a trustworthy source.

Connections to Related IF4IT Practices and Inventories

The Applications Inventory and Attributes describes the attributes of the Application Record, including its financial attributes. The Application Portfolio Management (APM) Best Practices addresses building an application cost model, capturing total cost of ownership, and connecting APM to the SDLC. The IF4IT Enterprise Model and Modeling Best Practices and the Enterprise Inventory Management Best Practices describe how inventories feed the Enterprise Model.