Our organization tries to minimize the amount of technology sprawl, so any software that we use must be approved before use. This includes the use of software components, add-ons, extensions that have been approved for use. An example of these would be:
- Windows Subsystem for Linux - A non-standard Windows component that is approved for use, but not installed by default.
- Azure DevOps Marketplace - Extensions available for use in DevOps pipelines.
- Browser extensions - these are only installed by request, if they are approved for use.
- Power Platform connectors - these could be connectors for Power Automate or visuals for Power BI, etc.
Originally, I was thinking these could be Technology Components, but these are more product-specific so I don't think that's the best place for these. Ideally, being able to classify (i.e. browser extension, plugin/addon, local agent, etc.) these components would also be helpful. It seem more sensible to keep these somewhere in the Technology layer, but my other thought was just creating these as Composite Applications.
Does anyone else model this information? Are there better ways to do this?
