Application Portfolio Assessment Guide: Are Your Business-critical Applications at Risk?

A S S E S S M E N T G U I D E
Are Your Business-critical
Applications at Risk?
Application Portfolio Assessment Guide Table of Contents
> Application Assessment Overview 1
> Section One - Application Profile 2
> Section Two - Application Support 5
> Section Three - Application Technical Details 8
> Complete Visibility for Problem Diagnostics 10
> Complete Visibility for Optimized OLA(s) and SLA(s) 11
> Complete Visibility for Heightened Security 11
Copyright © 2008. Progress Software Corporation. All rights reserved.Application Assessment Overview
Business-critical applications are in a league of their own, or, at least, they should be. Sure they take on the same software development lifecycle from requirements management, to process modeling, development, and testing. But at the end of the day should they be treated like every other application? I think not! Applications that support critical business processes are vital to your organization's mission, health, and success. They should receive priority attention to ensure that they align with the business requirements and are optimized for the intended result.
Of course, first you have to identify which business processes and their supporting applications-for example, order-entry, CRM, trading, production line apps-are the most critical. Usually, such applications possess a few common denominators. They are customer, partner, or channel facing; they directly effect revenue; and/or they can have significant effect on productivity. Because of the potential impact that these applications have on the business, you can easily see why they should fall into a class of their own: their execution, support, and efficiency should become top priority.
This guide can help. It enables you to create a high-level overview of each business- critical application in your portfolio. It divides information gathering about critical processes and their supporting applications into three areas:
> Application profile: the business context and requirements> Application support: the details on processes used to support the application > Application technical details: the technical underpinnings of the application.
These three areas are important because they identify the context of the business-critical application, determine risk factors, and gauge overall effectiveness of the application. As a result, by answering the questions in this guide, you will be taking the initial steps to measuring the health of your application portfolio. This assessment, in turn, will provide a foundation for further investigation and actions to optimize the outcomes of your business-critical applications and mitigate risk-as expected by the business unit.
Copyright © 2008. Progress Software Corporation. All rights reserved. 1Section One - Application Profile
This section collects attributes of the application as it relates to the business. It provides insight into what the application actually does in a business context and identifies who the end users are and whether or not the application affects revenue.
1. What is the application name, and what is the usage model? The usage model pertains directly to the business requirement as determined by the funding business unit. What were the driving needs of the business that were the impetus for this application? What is its overall system objective?
While these questions may seem obvious, findings show that in many cases metrics measured after deployment fall short of the initial requirements and objectives set by the business unit. It is, therefore, important to re-establish the original intent.
Example: An application called the "Cambridge Reservation System" (CRS) was developed as an online booking system to drive revenue for a chain of hotels. The sales department was the business unit requesting the application. The key objectives were to increase the booking rate and to provide superior customer service to "platinum" travelers by offering an extensive network of services that includes information and bookings for a range of offerings from fine dining and entertainment to child-care services for visiting families.
2. Who are the end-users? Are they internal or external?As you respond and state whether your users are internal or external, or both, it's important to consider some of their ... [download for more]