Service Subscriptions and Business Data

Service subscriptions track the relationships between business users and the services they use. A service subscriber, either an individual user or an entire department, can request subscriptions to various services listed in the Service Catalog. A subscriber’s list of subscriptions may reference access to shared services and individually assigned CIs. Subscriptions can include SLAs, history, custom options, and pending change requests.

This function is also available in Micro Focus Project and Portfolio Management (PPM). PPM Application Portfolio Management (APM) module maps business processes to applications.

In Micro Focus UCMDB, the CI and CI relationships are governed by the Micro Focus Universal Data Model (UDM). From that viewpoint, a user can see three CI types: Business Process, Service, and Business Service – all extensions of CI type Business Element.

The CI type BusinessProcess is defined as follows in UDM:

“A Business Process is a collection of inter (user-triggers or automatic), which solve a particular issue to define the functional needs of the business service being provided. A process can be hierarchically decomposed into business activities. Usage: Some of the business processes are provided to the external customers, others are internal processes that are essential for the effective management of the business. Example: Order processing, new employee on-boarding, etc.”

The UDM allows business process CIs to be connected “downward” to service CIs and “upward” to business service CIs.

The logic is supported by the definition of CI type “service” (below) in UDM which can represent an IT service:

“A Service is an abstract class which may represent an IT or Business Service, including Infrastructure Services which are delivered by IT in support of a Business Service.”