The best way to represent external services on a deployment diagram

[AndreiPashkin]

What's the best way to represent external services on a deployment diagram?

This is the best I came up with:

Source:

workspace {

    model {
        u = person "User"
        external = softwareSystem "External Services" {
            sentry = container "Sentry"
        }
        s = softwareSystem "Software System" {
            webapp = container "Web Application" "" "Spring Boot" {
                this -> sentry "Sends exceptions"
            }
            database = container "Database" "" "Relational database schema"
        }

        u -> webapp "Uses"
        webapp -> database "Reads from and writes to"
        
        development = deploymentEnvironment "Development" {
            deploymentNode "Sentry Cloud" {
                containerInstance sentry
            }
            
            deploymentNode "Cluster" {
                
                deploymentNode "Developer Laptop" {
                    containerInstance webapp
                    deploymentNode "MySQL" {
                        containerInstance database
                    }
                }
            }
        }
    }

    views {
        deployment * development {
            include *
            autoLayout lr
        }
    }
    
}

[simonbrowndotje]

I don't know much about Sentry, but I would probably do this:

[AndreiPashkin]

Can you share the code for this solution?

[jypma-prlg]

Hi Andrei,

See the code below. The code reflects that the container has been converted to a softwaresystem. Following the c4model abstraction description, this comes closest to the highest level of abstraction and describes something that delivers value to its users. An external service describes a category, and not a specific external service - therefore not being specific enough to use in a C4 Model.

workspace {

    model {
        u = person "User"
        sentry = softwareSystem "Sentry"
        
        s = softwareSystem "Software System" {
            webapp = container "Web Application" "" "Spring Boot" {
                this -> sentry "Sends exceptions"
            }
            database = container "Database" "" "Relational database schema"
        }

        u -> webapp "Uses"
        webapp -> database "Reads from and writes to"
        
        development = deploymentEnvironment "Development" {
            deploymentNode "Sentry Cloud" {
                softwareSystemInstance sentry
            }
            
            deploymentNode "Cluster" {
                
                deploymentNode "Developer Laptop" {
                    containerInstance webapp
                    deploymentNode "MySQL" {
                        containerInstance database
                    }
                }
            }
        }
    }

    views {
        deployment * development {
            include *
            autoLayout lr
        }
    }
    
}