systemslandskab

Systemslandskab, often translated as system landscape, is a holistic representation of all information systems deployed within an organization and the relationships among them. It covers applications, data stores, middleware, infrastructure, integration interfaces, and the governance that guides their use. The aim is to support strategic planning, operational management, risk assessment, and compliance by providing a single view of how systems interact and where responsibilities lie.

A typical systemslandskab is structured into layers: the application portfolio, the data landscape, the technology stack, and the integration or interface layer. It also includes governance structures, security policies, service-level agreements, and monitoring capabilities. Understanding these elements helps identify dependencies, data flows, ownership, lifecycle status, and opportunities for consolidation or modernization.

Modeling approaches include as-is and to-be views, reference architectures, and enterprise architecture frameworks such as TOGAF or Zachman. In practice, organizations often maintain a configuration management database (CMDB) or architecture repository to store system metadata and relationships. The landscape informs initiatives such as cloud migration, system modernization, outsourcing, and security enhancements.

Challenges include keeping the landscape current in fast-changing environments, ensuring data quality, overcoming siloed information, and achieving interoperability across vendors. Benefits include improved decision making, reduced duplication, lower risk, and clearer accountability across IT and business units. The concept is widely used in enterprise IT governance and architecture practice to align technology assets with strategic goals.