Application landscape webapp

[Hiawatha]

In several previous jobs, I was an information security officer. In many cases, I saw that the companies I worked for didn't have a complete overview of their application landscape. Although creating one is not the task for an ISO, I still started working on it because I needed it to do my work. I looked for software in which I could register the landscape, but didn't found one that matched with my needs. Many big, bloated and expensive software with lots of other stuff that I didn't need. I finally decided to use Archi.

Although I think Archi is great, it's not the best solution for it. Requiring the company to install the software on every PC, telling people how the software works, having write-access for a few people and read-only for the rest, it's not an easy job. Archi is simply not an enterprise solution.

Therefor, I decided to create such application. It's task is simple: allow people to define an application landscape and allow other people to consult it. My plan is to finally publish it as a free and open source application at github. The application has the ability to export the landscape to the Archi format, so you can use Archi to create images for in presentations and documentation. Maybe, in the future I will use HTML canvas to create views, but not for now. The application can be found at https://landscape.leisink.net/, username 'demo' and password 'demo'. Use the 'CMS' link at the right bottom of the page to modify the demo landscape. I'm now looking for feedback. What do you think of the idea of creating such application generally? What is missing in the application? Why would you or would you not use this application on your own organisation? Please send your remarks to hugo at leisink dot net.

Yes, I know, the Archi export does very likely not comply with Archi rules. But that's not my goal. My goal is to have an application which allows organisations to register their application landscape in an usable and easy way. However, ideas for a better export format or other Archi related ideas are of course also welcome.

[Jean-Baptiste Sarrodie]

Hi,

First, thank you for sharing it.

I've had a quick look and it seems to me that you are just looking for a CMDB-like solution. If you don't know it (and even if you do, rethink about it) you should have a look at CMDBuild and test it (either the online demo version or your own). Despite its name, CMDBuild is a generic (opensource) solution, fully customizable, to manage items and link them, so application, hardware... are just examples of such items. In addition, CMDBuild comes with jasperreport, making it easy to generate some reports, and also a lot of other nice things.

There is also a docker image for it.

Regards,

JB

PS. In your message you wrote "Archimate is simply not an enterprise solution" but I think you were thinking about Archi (the tool), not ArchiMate (the standard)...

[Hiawatha]

Thanks for your reply. I know CMDBuild, but I've decided not to use that. To prevent that this turns into a CMDBuild discussion, I won't go into the details.

Yes, where I said Archimate, I meant Archi.