Data model

The core 7lens model is the Ontology: four axes — Groups, Organization, Technology, and Business. Organization, Technology, and Business describe what your enterprise is. Groups is one axis with three containers (Groups, Frameworks, Integrations) that classifies across the other three. Data Model Extensions add Inventory, where each Asset lives.

Filled in for your enterprise, the Ontology becomes your Context: the shared picture people, AI agents, and software read.

The 7lens Data Model. Groups is one axis with three containers: Groups, Frameworks and Integrations. It classifies across the three other axes. Organization: Organization, Region, Sub-region (optional), Country, Legal Entity. Technology: Stack, Service, then Offering and Asset Type side by side, with Platform and ICT Provider cross-cutting. Business: Domain, Application. Data Model Extensions add Inventory, where each Asset lives, and, in future, Contracts and Processes. Together they form one 7lens Context.

Groups

One axis, three containers

Defined by each enterprise. They classify elements across Organization, Technology and Business, and set strategic ownership and access boundaries through the Owner of each value.

Groups

Your own classification dimensions, with values and Owners.

• Business Line
• Criticality
• Modernization Wave
• Operating Model

Frameworks

Standards, architecture models and compliance regimes from the catalogue. Selecting one records intent, not certification.

• TOGAF
• TBM
• ISO 27001
• GDPR
• DORA

Integrations

Tool and platform taxonomies from the catalogue. Not instance, tenant or Asset ids.

• ServiceNow CSDM

Apply to and classify

Organization

Who the enterprise is and where it operates.

1. Organization(global)
2. Region
3. Sub-region(optional)
4. Country(ISO 3166-1 alpha-2)
5. Legal EntitySpanish entity

Each node has an accountable person (Owner). Regions and Sub-regions follow UN M49.

Geographic and legal context

Technology

The technology capabilities the enterprise provides and how they are organized.

1. Stack(recursive)Compute
2. ServiceKubernetes
3. Offering(product or variant)
   Asset Type(recognition key for Assets)Kubernetes cluster

Cross-cutting

Platform(in-house or third-party)Kubernetes platform

ICT Provider(third-party supplier)

Stack → Service → Offering / Asset Type. Platform and ICT Provider are cross-cutting, not levels.

Supports and consumes

Business

The business areas and the applications that support them.

1. Domain(recursive)Retail Banking
2. ApplicationPayments

A Domain belongs to exactly one Legal Entity. An Application belongs to a Domain and consumes the Technology Services it relies on. It stores no link to a Platform: Assets show that relation.

Data Model Extensions

They extend the core model without being axes of it.

Inventory

Every real thing the enterprise tracks. An Asset belongs to Applications and/or Platforms (it may also belong to a Domain) and maps to Technology through its Asset Type and one Offering. A Platform may produce an Asset, or not; Platform-produced Assets are the recommended target.

Asset(one real instance)Payments cluster

ContractsFuture

Commercial contracts with vendors and providers, tied to what they actually cover.

ProcessesFuture

Operational processes made machine-readable, so they can be automated and monitored.

7lens Context

One trusted Context: every element connected and classified the same way, read by people, AI agents and software.

Example: a payments app in Retail Banking

1. Retail Banking is a Business Domain.
2. That Domain belongs to a Legal Entity in Spain, which gives it its place in the Organization.
3. Payments is an Application in the Retail Banking Domain. It stores no Legal Entity of its own; it sits in the Organization through its Domain.
4. Payments consumes a Technology Service it relies on: Kubernetes, in the Compute Stack.
5. The Kubernetes Platform supplies that Service and creates a cluster for Payments.
6. The cluster is an Asset in Inventory. Its Asset Type, Kubernetes cluster, sits on the Kubernetes Service, and the Asset names one Offering of that Service.
7. The cluster belongs to Payments; the Platform produced it. Payments and the Platform have no direct link: the Asset shows the relation.

Ontology and Context

• The Ontology is the model 7lens ships: the kinds of things that exist, and the rules for connecting them. You add your own Groups and attributes to it.
• The Context is that model filled in for one enterprise: the actual organization, applications, assets, links, and the history of where each fact came from.
• Canonical means the single 7lens version of a fact after sources have been compared and disagreements resolved. It does not mean 7lens invented the fact.

Rules that keep the model consistent

Invariant

An Application and a Platform have no link. A Platform supplies Technology Services and may produce Assets. When you need the relation, derive it from Assets: the Platform produced an Asset that belongs to the Application. It is never stored.

Invariant

An Asset sits on a Deployment. Each Deployment belongs to one Application or one Platform, never both. A shared Asset belongs to the Platform. An Asset made for one Application belongs to that Application, whether a Platform produced it or not.

Do

Aim for every Asset to be produced by a Platform. It is the recommended target for automation, standardization, and security. An Asset with no producing Platform is still valid.

Do

Put your own classification (business line, criticality, modernization wave) under Groups; standards and compliance regimes under Frameworks; tool and platform taxonomies under Integrations.

Don’t

Invent a fourth container called “Technology Groups”. Stack, Service, Offering, Platform, and ICT Provider stay Technology concepts. Do not model Data Sensitivity, Environment, or Lifecycle as Groups either.

Invariant

The system that produced a fact stays the authority for that fact. 7lens is the authority for the connected meaning: the Asset’s type, its belonging, its links, and how disagreements were resolved. 7lens does not overwrite the source system.

Go deeper

Axis or topic	Reference page
The whole model	Data model
Who the enterprise is and where it operates	Organization
Classification, Frameworks, Integrations	Groups
Stack, Service, Offering, Asset Type, Platform, ICT Provider	Technology
Domains, Applications, Deployments	Business
Time, people, provenance, money, declarations	Conventions
Worked Asset Type records	Asset Type reference examples