The success of any software or product relies on the deployment speed. So, speed matters a lot in the development world. Some companies who develop software in an organized way can deploy software updates daily, sometimes, more than this. Now, the question is, what makes its development process faster. So, here is the secret – Application Lifecycle Management.
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What is Application Lifecycle Management?
Basically, Application Lifecycle Management is the set of processes, people, and tools to help the application management. Better is the application management, better will speed of your application deployment. Application Lifecycle Management is also known by the name of ALM. The ALM process incorporates the basic activities necessary for the application like requirement analysis and management, design and development, quality assurance and testing, project management, deployment, etc.
When an idea is discussed in any organization; thus, ALM is required to develop that idea into an application. Sometimes, the ALM process is compared with PLM(Product Lifecycle Management) process, which is necessary after the product release in the market. However, ALM consists of the lifecycle management activities ranging from the requirement analysis to application deployment.
Application Lifecycle Management Reports
As per the reports of GlobeNewswire, the market of application lifecycle management(ALM) is expected to reach USD 5.0 Billion By 2026. And countries like the United States, Canada would have the largest share in the markets.
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ALM vs. SDLC: What is the difference?
While both the terms ALM and SDLC are overlapped with each other, therefore, most people consider both these terms as a single process. But they aren’t the same. ALM (Application Lifecycle Management) covers the application’s entire life. From the beginning of the idea until the end of the application life. On the other hand, SDLC (Software Development Lifecycle) covers only the software development and testing phase. Somehow, SDLC can be considered part of the ALM process during the development, testing, and deployment phase.
Importance of Application Lifecycle Management
Before utilizing ALM in real-time application development, let’s first known why Application Lifecycle Management is important? Why most of the users or developers are preferring the ALM over SDLC? Right? The ALM process begins when a company decides to invest their valuable time and money in software or application development until the time product dies. Having the ALM process in their application development procedure enables the continuous delivery of the software and updates. What makes ALM important for application development? Here we go:
- It makes the process of application development smooth and faster.
- It helps to prepare and manage the application development stages before actually working on it.
- It controls the development budget and productivity of the application.
- It is helpful in the collaboration of the team members.
- It helps to collect user requirements and business opportunities efficiently.
- It develops the strategies and procedures to manage the time and development stages of an application.
Application Lifecycle Management Stages
Generally, ALM(Application Lifecycle Management) is categorized into three groups, which are named as Application Governance, Application Development, and Application Operations.
At the Application Governance stage, the ALM describes the processes and activities they will perform in the application development to meet the organization’s and end-users’ requirements.
The second stage means Application Development; it includes the procedure of user requirements gathering and analysis, development, testing, and deployment of the application.
At the stage of Application Operations, It includes the monitoring and performance analysis of the application in the development phase at the Application Operations stage. This application operations stage begins with the application deployment continues until the end of the application’s life. Let’s learn about these ALM stages in detail:
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• Requirement Analysis and Management
The most important part of the application development process is the analysis of the user requirements. If we talk about the requirement analysis and management stage in detail, it includes the phase of user requirement gathering and analysis, identifying idea feasibility. Based on this requirement analysis, critical decisions are made for application development. In requirement gathering, it comprises the activities ranging from the stakeholder’s business needs to end-users needs.
This stage of Application Lifecycle Management includes essential features like resource management, data security, and user access. Here, application development teams define all the risks and testing components, and the scope of the applications. Thus, requirement analysis and management eradicate the problem of time-consuming tasks and errors in the application.
• Application Design & Development
After going through all the requirements and necessities for the application, the second crucial stage of application design & development comes into play. This stage where your ideas are transformed into an application. This phase includes the designing, development, and deployment of an application. During the application designing, design drafts and mockups are created as per the user requirements. The development phase contains activities like application development, initial code testing, testing of new releases, and application deployment. What’s more, you can add the SDLC activities during the development phase of ALM.
• Source Control and Release Management
During this ALM stage, various application management operations are performed that includes the performance analysis, usage of monitoring tools, provide tools & processes to developers to manage the source code, configuring application infrastructure, and providing application feedback & reviews related to the performance issues, damages, & other reasons. This phase consists of the actual team collaboration capabilities. It makes the process of application development error-free and continuous; it also reduces the risks associated with the applications.
• Quality Assurance and Testing
Quality Assurance and Testing in Application Lifecycle Management is the phase where the team establishes quality assurance processes to make application development smoother and faster. Quality assurance is the quality analyst’s responsibility to ensure the performance and working of the application. They also make sure everything is working with high precision and accuracy. The process of quality assurance consists of some essential factors on which it is performed. And these factors are critical for the entire application development process to make it error-free and reliable.
• Continuous Integration
Although several integration tools are available for application deployment, application lifecycle management tools are best for any kind of application. As these ALM tools are integrated with CI servers, so these are much more efficient and effective. Interestingly, these ALM tools let you combine the information from the different sources and enhance the visibility of each build of your application. Moreover, it allows you to perform the synchronization between several platforms, the collaboration between teams through technologies.
In a few words
Undoubtedly, ALM(Application Lifecycle Management) has become a crucial part of application development. ALM allows releasing an update on time. It is helpful at every stage from requirement analysis until the end. The most crucial point is that it provides team collaboration, which I think is the primary reason for the faster deployment and application release.
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