HOW To Create An IT Landscape Diagram Tutorial

This tutorial will help you to create an IT Landscape on Dragon1 like the diagram on this page.

According to Dragon1 an IT Landscape shows how the IT services are grouped, structured, and delivered by IT components. It presents a technical view of IT supported with a functional view of IT, plus the IT architecture principles and IT standards that ensure the quality of the IT Landscape.

Go to the demo IT Landscape.

Having an overview helps to control resources and costs

If an organization loses the overview of the IT Landscape, the costs and resources needed to solve problems will increase dramatically. Also, quick fixes are planted instead of sustainable solutions. It pays off to have an updated IT Landscape all the time.

Removing legacy systems successfully

Implementing new applications, updating systems to the new version, or even cloud migration is not as hard as removing legacy systems.

Replacing old systems without having an overview beforehand of how everything is structured and connected and where dependencies, are likely to run into showstoppers.

First a few dependencies must be solved before the legacy systems can be taken out of the equation.

Having an updated IT Landscape helps to see the interfaces and dependencies a system has.

The parts of an IT Landscape

According to Dragon1 an IT Landscape shows how the IT services are grouped, structured, and delivered by IT components.

It presents a technical view of IT supported with a functional view of IT.

An IT Landscape shows all the core and vital IT assets of an organization, the set of computer and network software and hardware plus 'connected' things in a specific configuration, grouped by domains.

The IT Landscape shows how the business operation of an organization is supported with IT services.

A best practice is to visualize the structures in the domains and groups in layers.

To sum up the key parts of IT Landscape:

• IT User groups
• IT Users (internal and external)
• IT Service groups
• IT Services (internal and external)
• IT Domains
• IT Components (internal and external/outsourced)
  • Locations
  • Networks
  • Clouds
  • Computers
  • Operating systems
  • IoT devices
  • Storage and archiving devices
  • Other devices
  • Software systems and applications
  • System and application interfaces
• IT Architecture Principles
• IT Standards

Practical IT Landscape Stakeholder Benefits

IT Landscapes have different benefits for different stakeholders.

• It helps directors to be in control of service quality
• It helps architects to better plan changes
• It helps managers to be in control of the execution of changes
• It helps technicians to solve problems quicker and more sustainable
• It helps projects to better work together
• It helps auditors and security roles maintain a higher level of cybersecurity

It is also interesting to read the page of IT Architecture in the resources section.