Technology Standards Management: Microservice Discovery

Streamline the process of discovering and managing microservices to enhance operational efficiency and compliance.

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Early Adopter Release

This feature is currently in early adopter release and may not be available to all users.

Overview

Understanding what software your organization uses, where it operates, and its associated risk and compliance status is crucial for maintaining operational efficiency, security, and regulatory compliance. SAP LeanIX offers Technology Standards Management, a comprehensive solution for managing technology standards that enables you to catalog your software assets, assess associated risks, and ensure compliance with relevant regulations and standards. For more information, see Technology Standards Management.

Modern organizations use a vast range of technologies. With the extensive number of microservices in use, manually discovering technology can become a cumbersome and inefficient process. This inefficiency may lead to bottlenecks that slow down operations and hinder progress. To address this, SAP LeanIX offers various methods for automating the technology discovery process, ensuring it's both efficient and accurate.

Discovering components within your microservices software ecosystem involves two separate yet equally important processes:

  • Discovering microservices
  • Discovering software components

While these two processes operate independently of each other, it's highly recommended to register the components of your microservices alongside the microservices themselves. This approach provides a more comprehensive and holistic overview of your software ecosystem, enabling you to manage your software architecture more effectively, mitigate potential risks, and make more informed strategic decisions.

Microservice Discovery

The process of discovering microservices is conducted through the use of a YAML manifest file stored in your repository. This file, typically named leanix.yaml, contains detailed information about your microservices. By parsing this file, you can gain crucial insights into the structure and characteristics of your microservices, thereby enabling effective management and optimization of your microservices architecture.

Software Components Discovery

The process of discovering software components within microservices involves the use of Software Bill of Materials (SBOM) files. These files adhere to either the Software Package Data Exchange (SPDX) or the CycloneDX specification. For more information about SPDX, you can visit the SPDX website. If you're interested in learning more about CycloneDX, you can visit the CycloneDX website.

SBOM files provide a comprehensive inventory of all software components, libraries, and modules used by a microservice. By leveraging the SPDX or CycloneDX formats, you can effectively track and manage these components, which enables you to ensure compliance with licensing requirements, identify potential security vulnerabilities, and gain a deeper understanding of your software supply chain.

Explore the guides in this section to learn how to implement the discovery of microservices and software components.