Configuration Item Types

This is not a complete list of of configuration item types you can use in swark.

Strategic thinking

Strategy

A strategy is something you want to achieve in a few years or months.

Question

Each strategy may have one or more questions which might have to be answered. They may be the reason why a strategy should be identified in the first place. You can assign each question to any of your strategies.

Objective

During your analysis you are (hopefully) able to answer the questions and then derive a meaningful number of objectives for your strategy.

Measuring your strategy

Objectives are meaningless if you are not able to measure them. swark allows you to define metrics which then can be measured in recurring periods.

Metric

A metric defines a measurable item. The measurement can be of a given type (boolean, integer or percentage) and you can define if a higher value is better or a lower value. Metrics are something like Number of total applications secured with MFA.

KPI

For each of your strategic objectives, you can use any of your metrics and assign a target goal value and thresholds. You can re-use the same metric for different strategies.

Period

Periods define the time period in which KPIs have been measured. You can compare KPI measurements between different periods.

Measurement

For a given KPI in a period, you measure the value of your metric.

Compliance

VaIT, DORA, NIS2, some other certification. You name it.

Regulation

A regulation can be something like NIS2.

Chapter

Each regulation has a number of chapters with content in it.

Control

Based upon each chapter, a regulation may derive a number of controls.

Risk

For any number of controls you can define the risk and if you accept those risks.

Actions

Action

This is something you have to do. swark is neither Atlassian Jira nor any of the numerous task and project management frameworks out there. Think of actions as something what has to be done. Actions can be assigned to any control or objective.

Data management

Data classification

TBD

IT

For the IT and software architecture part of swark, we provide you with C4-related elements

Actor

An Actor is someone from the outside who can interact with one of the other architecture's elements.

Aspect	Description
Perspective	Enterprise architect
C4 analogy	In C4, an Actor is a Person

Technology

A Technology is a protocol, language, framework, data-format, concept or any other you can think of. Typical candidates for a technology are

• HTTP as a protocol
• C# as a language
• .NET Standard as a framework
• IP as a protocol
• Kafka as protocol
• MySQL as protocol

You might notice that MySQL is a little bit blurry. From a network layer perspective, MySQL is a protocol - but is also a software. For MySQL you would then have multiple software packages using this technology, e.g. MySQL Server and MariaDB.

Aspect	Description
Perspective	IT/Network/Software architect
Has versions	Each technology can have any number of versions, e.g. for HTTP this can be 1.1 and 2.0
C4 analogy	Technology directly relates to C4's technology keyword

Protocol stack

A Protocol stack consists of multiple technologies in their specific versions. With this you can describe a detailed communication between different applications. Typical candidates for a protocol stack are

• REST/JSON over HTTPS with JSON, HTTP, TLS, TCP, IP as used technologies
• MySQL with MYSQL, MySQL, TLS, TCP, IP as used technologies

Aspect	Description
Perspective	Network architect, DevOps engineer
C4 analogy	Protocol stack is a more detailed and structured type of C4's technology keyword

Resource type

Software requires different elements to run: a runtime environment, the software package itself and any number of 3rd party resources. Resource types are used to model a provided resource by some element. Typical candidates are

• Database schema
• MySQL database schema with MySQL as referenced technology
• Message queue
• Kafaka topic with Kafka as referenced technology

Aspect	Description
Perspective	Enterprise architect, Software architect
C4 analogy	A C4's container matches a resource type

Stage

During software development, each software runs through different stages, so it can be inspected and used by a different audience. Stages are the horizontal view of an application lifecycle. Typical candidates are

• DEV
• TEST
• PROD

Aspect	Description
Perspective	Software architect, DevOps engineer
C4 analogy	In C4, a stage is a deployment environment

Layer

In contrast to stages, layers are assigned to software components and represent the vertical view of a software architecture. Typical candidates are

• DAO
• Service layer
• Backend
• API
• Frontend

Aspect	Description
Perspective	Software architect
C4 analogy	No analogy in C4

Software

In swark, a software is any piece which can be installed or executed. Most often, a software is only a single unit. Each software belongs to a usage category (console, webapp, server, client, mobile) and may have a special purpose.

Depending upon the activated purposes of the software, you can assign the software to different elements in your architecture.

Purpose	Description
Virtualization software	Hosts can use software with Virtualization as a parent host
Operating system	Software with Operating system can directly run on Hosts
Runtime	Other software can run inside the runtime (e.g. Kubernetes, Apache Tomcat)
Library	Not used yet

Typical candidates for a software are

• MariaDB
• Microsoft SQL Server
• Kubernetes

As you can see, Kubernetes is obviously not a single unit and can not be executed as just one binary.

Aspect	Description
Perspective	Software architect
Has versions	Each software can have multiple releases
C4 analogy	software maps to C4's softwareSystem

Component

Each software consists upon a number of components. Depending upon your software architecture, this could be Java modules, .NET projects or even namespaces. Please note that a nesting of components is not possible. Each component can use and provide a number of technologies in their belonging version and can be assigned to multiple layers of your software architecture.

Aspect	Description
Perspective	Software architect
C4 analogy	component maps to C4's container

Service

Each component can have a number of services. A service can be used with a protocol stack. You can make a relationship from actors, systems and software to a service. Think of services as available endpoints, e.g.

• HTTP endpoint
• API endpoint

Aspect	Description
Perspective	Enterprise architect, Software architect
C4 analogy	incoming relationships to a container

System

In more complex cases, software does not run as a single binary but consists upon multiple software and resource elements. Therefore, swark provides you with the system element. Each system consists upon assigned software elements and resource types.

A system Time management could consist upon

• Software: MariaDB
• Software: MyTimeManagementApp
• Resource Type: MySQL database schema

Aspect	Description
Perspective	Enterprise architect
C4 analogy	C4's most fitting analogy is somewhere between systemLandscape and softwareSystem

Release trains

Release trains bundle different software versions and can be assigned to a parent system.

Aspect	Description
Perspective	Release management, DevOps engineer
C4 analogy	No analogy in C4

Allowed relationships

From \ To ->	Actor	System	Software	Component	Service	Resource Type
Actor	x	x	x	-	x	-
System	-	x	-	-	x	-
Software	-	x	x	-	x	x
Component	-	-	-	x	x	x
Service	-	-	-	-	-	x
Resource Type	-	-	-	-	-	-