One of the most popular features of Application Portfolio Management (APM) is Technology Portfolio Management (TPM). The module of APM allows users to first identify a normalized inventory of Software and Hardware technologies that comprise a particular instance (Application Service) of a Business Application and second, if available, show the Publisher and Internal Support lifecycles for said technologies. See this article on Community for a big picture overview of TPM: Technology Portfolio Management made easy.

Another key function of TPM is to calculate risks based upon these lifecycles and roll them up from the technology to the Application Service, Business Application and finally the Business Capability. This article seeks to provide details on how these risk calculations work and how they might be tailored to your organization’s particular needs.

The Risk Evaluation

The Risk evaluation is executed as a Scheduled Job that can easily be configured via APM’s Guided Setup. The process follows this flow:

• For each TPM Application Service Software Model record:
  
  • Evaluate the Software Model’s Publisher and Internal lifecycles
    
    • If Custom Evaluation Scripts have been defined, use it/them. Extensions of the script include, productModelCustomRiskCalculation
      
    • Out of the box evaluation uses the TPM Risk Parameters definitions (configurable in APM Guided Setup) to evaluate the risk of the Software Model
      * For each Risk Parameter save the model’s Risk score. See description of Risk Parameters below…
      
    • Set the Software Model Risk Score
      * The highest Risk is used in the order High, Medium, Low from the four parameters.
      
  • For each TPM Application Service Hardware Model record:
    
    • Evaluate the Hardware Model’s Publisher and Internal lifecycles
      * If Custom Evaluation Scripts have been defined, use it/them. Extensions of the script include, productModelCustomRiskCalculation
      * Out of the box evaluation uses the TPM Risk Parameters definitions (configurable in APM Guided Setup) to evaluate the risk of the Hardware Model
      * For each Risk Parameter save the model’s Risk score. See description of Risk Parameters below…
      * Set the Hardware Model Risk Score
      * The highest Risk is used in the order High, Moderate, Low from the four parameters.
      
  • For each Application Service, evaluate the Software and Hardware Model Risk value and set the Application Service Risk Score accordingly.
    
    • If a custom script has been defined for Application Service Risk evaluation use it/them. Extensions are from the script include, AppBusinessServicesCustomRiskCalculation
      
    • Otherwise…
      * If any reports High, then set to high
      * If none are high, then if any are moderate, set to moderate
      * If no high or moderate, set to Low
      
  • For Each Business Application, evaluate the Risk score based upon the scoring of the Application Services
    
    • The script include, BusinessApplicationCustomRiskCalculation can be extended to provide custom evaluation
      
    • Out of the box evaluation considers each Application Service Risk value and set the Business Application Risk score accordingly.

Risk Parameters

As described above, there are a set of Risk Parameters defined out of eth box for Software and Hardware. The Asset Management lifecycles define two types of lifecycles: Internal and Publisher. Internal are derived internally to represent your organization internal support lifecycle while the Publisher are those defined by the Software Publisher / Hardware Manufacturer. The Parameters evaluate the lifecycles for the provided product model and return high, moderate, or low based on the particular evaluation.

• HW Model Internal Aging Risk – examines the End of Life data on Internal lifecycle(s)
  
  • If date > 180 days, return low
    
  • If date >= 90 days and < 180, return moderate
    
  • If date < 90 days, return high
• HW Model Internal Stage Risk – examine the current stage/phase based on today’s date and return the Risk value defined on the Lifecycle itself. Very High is translated to high
• HW Model Publisher Aging Risk– examines the End of Life data on Publisher lifecycle(s)
  
  • If date > 180 days, return low
    
  • If date >= 90 days and < 180, return moderate
    
  • If date < 90 days, return high
• HW Model Publisher Stage Risk – examine the current stage/phase based on today’s date and return the Risk value defined on the Lifecycle itself. Very High is translated to high
• SW Model Internal Aging Risk – examines the End of Life data on Internal lifecycle(s)
  
  • If date > 180 days, return low
    
  • If date >= 90 days and < 180, return moderate
    
  • If date < 90 days, return high
• SW Model Internal Stage Risk – examine the current stage/phase based on today’s date and return the Risk value defined on the Lifecycle itself. Very High is translated to high
• SW Model Publisher Aging Risk– examines the End of Life data on Publisher lifecycle(s)
  
  • If date > 180 days, return low
    
  • If date >= 90 days and < 180, return moderate
    
  • If date < 90 days, return high
• SW Model Publisher Stage Risk – examine the current stage/phase based on today’s date and return the Risk value defined on the Lifecycle itself. Very High is translated to high

Configuration

TPM Risk evaluation can be conveniently managed from APM Guided Setup. Select the Technology Portfolio section and choose Risk parameters to configure the Risk Parameters. Also, you should configure the Load TPM Risk Parameters and compute Application Service Risks job so it is run daily.

Advanced configuration would include configuration of extensions to the Custom evaluation scripts mentioned above.

thank you and hope this helps. Happy APMing,

mark