Skip to content

Technology Portfolio

Purpose

The obsolescence and vendor-risk view of the estate. Where Application Portfolio asks whether applications have been assessed, this asks whether the technology underneath them is supported, and surfaces the end-of-life exposure a migration either inherits or fixes. The screen is headed Technology Portfolio Management, and its subtitle reads: "Tech stack analysis, vendor landscape, architecture distribution, and obsolescence risk tracking".

Where to find it

Assess → Technology Portfolio

What you see

Cards

Above the tabs: TOTAL APPLICATIONS ("In portfolio"), UNIQUE VENDORS ("Distinct vendors"), TECHNOLOGY STACKS ("Distinct stacks") and VENDOR EOL <12MO ("At risk").

Tabs

  • Tech Stack: the charts Applications by Technology Stack, Applications by Vendor, Architecture Types, Annual Spend by Technology Stack and Technology Stack by Criticality.
  • Risk & Obsolescence: the charts Component Risk, Cumulative EOL Exposure (Next 36 Months), Criticality vs Component Risk, Criticality Distribution and Vendor Support End Dates (Next 36 Months). Component Risk shows a generated sentence of the form "N applications at risk, £N annual TCO. Driven by: Vendor Support (N), Application EOL (N)". Cumulative EOL Exposure (Next 36 Months) has a quarterly axis and the series Cumulative TCO at risk, Cumulative applications and Past EOL.
  • Lifecycle Roadmap: a year grid from 2016 to 2033, by quarter (Q1 to Q4), with rows for Application / Software / Hardware and Risk. The legend shows Phase In, Active, Phase Out, End of Life, OS Support, HW Lifecycle, SW Support and SW Extended, with the note "Click ▶ to expand devices".

The screen has no grid and no forms.

Overview

A migration is an opportunity to deal with obsolescence, and a risk of carrying it forward. Technology Portfolio Management makes the exposure explicit: which vendors are in the estate, what has passed end of life, and what will pass it during the programme.

On Criticality vs Component Risk, component risk is banded by time to end of life: ≤ 12 months, 12–24 months and Past EOL.

When to use this

  • During assessment, to quantify the obsolescence the migration inherits.
  • When building the business case, since end-of-life exposure is often the most persuasive argument for a migration budget.
  • Before finalising scope, because a component going end of life mid-programme may need to move earlier than its business priority would suggest.

Key features

What this view changes about a plan

Three things follow from this view, and the third is not negotiable.

  • Vendor concentration (Applications by Vendor) shows where the estate carries commercial exposure to a single supplier.
  • Architecture distribution (Architecture Types) shows how much of the estate could realistically move to a modern target and how much cannot.
  • End-of-life exposure sets sequencing constraints.

Assess has four views, and each one can recommend the wrong thing on its own. See Why the four views are read together on the Application Portfolio page.

How to

Find what expires during the programme

  1. Open the dashboard. Go to Assess → Technology Portfolio.
  2. Open the Risk & Obsolescence tab. Select Risk & Obsolescence, and read Cumulative EOL Exposure (Next 36 Months) and Vendor Support End Dates (Next 36 Months).
  3. Identify what expires during the programme. Components passing end of life or end of service life within the migration window need a decision: move earlier, upgrade in place first, or accept and remediate afterwards. Record that decision as a RAID entry so it is not lost.
  4. Use the vendor grouping for the commercial conversation. Support renewals and licensing discussions happen per vendor. The Applications by Vendor chart on the Tech Stack tab is the one to take into those conversations.

Important fields

Field Description
Vendor The supplying vendor (Application column). Used for grouping and for support conversations.
Version Application column.
End Of Life The application's end-of-life date, one of its lifecycle-phase dates (Application column).
Vendor Support End Date When vendor support lapses (Application column). Often earlier than end of life and the date that matters commercially.
Lifecycle Phase Plan, Phase In, Active, Phase Out or End of Life (Application column).

Common mistakes

Treating end of life and end of support as the same date

They frequently differ, and the support date is usually the one with commercial and security consequences. Both dates are recorded separately for that reason.