Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) is a comprehensive framework that encompasses the entire lifecycle of software development, from initial concept to retirement. ALM integrates people, processes, and tools to manage the planning, development, testing, deployment, maintenance, and governance of software applications. This holistic approach ensures that software projects align with business goals, meet user requirements, and adhere to regulatory standards.
At its core, ALM is designed to enhance collaboration and communication among stakeholders, including developers, testers, project managers, and business analysts. By fostering a cohesive environment, ALM helps in identifying potential issues early, mitigating risks, and ensuring that quality is maintained throughout the development process. This collaboration is often facilitated through the use of integrated tools that provide a unified view of project progress, resource allocation, and performance metrics.
The ALM process typically begins with the planning phase, where project requirements are gathered and analyzed. This phase sets the foundation for subsequent stages, including design, where the architecture of the application is defined. Following design, the development phase involves the actual coding and implementation of the application. Quality assurance and testing are critical components of ALM, ensuring that the application functions correctly and meets specified requirements.
Once the application is deemed ready, it moves to the deployment phase, where it is released to the end-users. Post-deployment, the application enters the maintenance phase, which involves ongoing support, updates, and enhancements to address any issues or new requirements that arise.
ALM also emphasizes the importance of governance and compliance, ensuring that software development practices adhere to industry standards and regulations. This is particularly crucial for industries with stringent compliance requirements, such as healthcare and finance.
ALM has evolved over a while from being strictly a software discipline to a subject that needs to be given predominance over many of the core business considerations.
This also helps organizations drive their business with the Software-First process. The Software-First Approach essentially means that various organization workflows are delivered with software With all aspects of business functioning aided by technology, a new emerging business principle is called Software First. Organizations are first trying to get technology right and then adapting business workflows to the technology. Slowly organizations are realizing that instead of creating software that suits the business, it's best to first follow the ALM approach and see whether business processes are compliant.
A requirements study following exact practices followed in Software Development is also the first step in Business Process Re-engineering.
Before you read about 4 pillars of ALM it is important to learn about
why you should outsource your devops and cloudops operations
We broadly divide different aspects of Application Life Cycle Management into 4 Pillars. And they are....
The process of making decisions about an application is referred to as application governance. The creation of a business case, in which the concept of the app is connected to a strategic corporate objective, is the first step in the governance process. Aspects of governance include resource management, data security, and user access. Application portfolio management is useful in situations where a corporation has a lot of apps.
The process of designing computer software or a collection of applications to carry out the various functions that a business needs is the next step.The planning, developing, building, testing, and deployment of a software application to carry out various business tasks is known as application development, commonly referred to as app development. Either a single independent developer or sizable corporations with vast teams working on projects can carry it out. Application development outlines the steps involved in creating an application and often adheres to a set approach.
The process of developing an application is influenced by numerous factors. You must take into account the scope of the project, the level of detail in the specifications, the likelihood that the customer will request changes, and the size of the development team.
The third part of ALM is operations. Operations comprise the software's deployment and maintenance of the technology stack. In waterfall development, operations comes after development. Operations and development are combined into a smooth, continuous process by DevOps, which is an important pillar to the ALM story.
Testing and maintenance are essentially part of the final pillar. While testing as a practice would be integral to all phases, modern ALM dictates continuous testing of all aspects of applications. There is also stress on performance monitoring and security testing with consistent practice of Vulnerability Assessment and Penetration Testing(VAPT).
Applications under maintenance are also reviewed periodically and cross-checked against changes.