Applications Inventory and Attributes

The relationship between the Applications Inventory and the Technologies Inventory is a seeding and enrichment relationship. The Technology Profile attribute of each application record declares the technologies that application is built on — programming languages, application frameworks, database platforms, cloud services, runtime environments, and integration middleware. Each value in that multi-value attribute seeds the Technologies Inventory when a matching record does not yet exist, or references an existing record when it does. The aggregate of all Technology Profile values across all application records is one of the two primary inputs to the Technologies Inventory — the other being the Transport Technology attribute of Integration records in the Integrations Inventory.

This relationship means that a well-governed Applications Inventory continuously enriches the Technologies Inventory without requiring a separate technology discovery or data collection effort. As new applications are added to the Applications Inventory with their Technology Profiles populated, the Technologies Inventory grows automatically. As applications are retired and their Technology Profiles are no longer referenced by any active application record, the Technologies Inventory can identify technologies with no remaining active application consumers — a signal for technology deprecation or retirement. For the complete governance model and attribute specification for the Technologies Inventory, refer to the IF4IT Technologies Inventory and Attributes document and the IF4IT Technology Portfolio Management Best Practices document.