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Application Lifecycle Management

 
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Application lifecycle management (ALM) is the marriage of business management to software engineering
Software engineering

Software engineering is the application of a systematic, disciplined, quantifiable approach to the development, operation, and maintenance of software, and the study of these approaches....
 made possible by tools that facilitate and integrate requirements management
Requirements management

Requirements management is the process of eliciting, documenting, analyzing, prioritizing and agreeing on requirements and then controlling change and communicating to relevant stakeholders....
, architecture
Software architecture

The software architecture of a program or computing system is the structure or structures of the software system, which comprise software components, the externally visible properties of those components, and the relationships between them....
, coding
Computer programming

Computer programming is the process of writing, testing, debugging/troubleshooting, and maintaining the source code of computer programs. This source code is written in a programming language....
, testing
Software testing

Software Testing is an empirical investigation conducted to provide stakeholders with information about the quality of the product or service under test , with respect to the context in which it is intended to operate....
, tracking
Issue tracking system

An issue tracking system is a computer software package that manages and maintains lists of Issue , as needed by an organization. Issue tracking systems are commonly used in an organization's customer support call center to create, update, and resolve reported customer issues, or even issues reported by that organization's other employees....
, and release management
Release Management

Release management defines the mechanisms of building and releasing software, and is included as a component of the Service Support Set in ITIL....
.

onents of application lifecycle management claim that it

pplication development has evolved over time, more and more tools have been introduced. Initially, software development was supported with individual point tools, and then simple suites of tools emerged with loose integrations.






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Encyclopedia


Application lifecycle management (ALM) is the marriage of business management to software engineering
Software engineering

Software engineering is the application of a systematic, disciplined, quantifiable approach to the development, operation, and maintenance of software, and the study of these approaches....
 made possible by tools that facilitate and integrate requirements management
Requirements management

Requirements management is the process of eliciting, documenting, analyzing, prioritizing and agreeing on requirements and then controlling change and communicating to relevant stakeholders....
, architecture
Software architecture

The software architecture of a program or computing system is the structure or structures of the software system, which comprise software components, the externally visible properties of those components, and the relationships between them....
, coding
Computer programming

Computer programming is the process of writing, testing, debugging/troubleshooting, and maintaining the source code of computer programs. This source code is written in a programming language....
, testing
Software testing

Software Testing is an empirical investigation conducted to provide stakeholders with information about the quality of the product or service under test , with respect to the context in which it is intended to operate....
, tracking
Issue tracking system

An issue tracking system is a computer software package that manages and maintains lists of Issue , as needed by an organization. Issue tracking systems are commonly used in an organization's customer support call center to create, update, and resolve reported customer issues, or even issues reported by that organization's other employees....
, and release management
Release Management

Release management defines the mechanisms of building and releasing software, and is included as a component of the Service Support Set in ITIL....
.

Benefits

Proponents of application lifecycle management claim that it
  • Increases productivity, as the team shares best practices for development and deployment, and developers need focus only on current business requirements
  • Improves quality, so the final application meets the needs and expectations of users
  • Breaks boundaries through collaboration and smooth information flow
  • Accelerates development through simplified integration
  • Cuts maintenance time by synchronizing application and design
  • Maximizes investments in skills, processes, and technologies
  • Increases flexibility by reducing the time it takes to build and adapt applications that support new business initiatives


Categories of ALM Tools

As application development has evolved over time, more and more tools have been introduced. Initially, software development was supported with individual point tools, and then simple suites of tools emerged with loose integrations. Now we have modern comprehensive lifecycle tools that are fully integrated and provide capabilities for most of the roles in ALM. The most recent innovation is the discussion around ALM 2.0 which describes a vision for the application development infrastructure needed to meet the needs of the most modern development communities.

As the complexity and sophistication of the software development task has grown it has been matched by increasing numbers of tools. The initial set of tools started with version control tools at the heart of the lifecycle and have grown out from there. Though there is no industry definition of what constitutes and what does not constitute an ALM tool, and the list gets longer every day, the generally accepted categories include:

  • Requirements visualization
  • Requirements management
    Requirements management

    Requirements management is the process of eliciting, documenting, analyzing, prioritizing and agreeing on requirements and then controlling change and communicating to relevant stakeholders....
  • Feature management
    Feature (software design)

    The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers defines the term feature in IEEE 829 as "A distinguishing characteristic of a software item ." ....
  • Modeling
    Model-driven engineering

    Model-driven engineering is a software development methodology which focuses on creating models, or abstractions, more close to some particular domain concepts rather than computing concepts....
  • Design
    Software design

    Software design is a process of problem-solving and planning for a software solution. After the purpose and specifications of software are determined, software developers will design or employ designers to develop a plan for a solution....
  • Project Management
    Project management

    Project management is the List of academic disciplines of planning, organizing and managing resources to bring about the successful completion of specific project goals and objectives....
  • Change management
  • Configuration Management
    Configuration management

    Configuration management is a field of management that focuses on establishing and maintaining consistency of a product's performance and its functional and physical attributes with its requirements, design, and operational information throughout its life....
  • Software Information Management (for ALM Tool Integration)
  • Build management
    Software build

    In the field of computer software, the term software build refers either to the process of converting source code files into standalone software artifact that can be run on a computer, or the result of doing so....
  • Testing
    Software verification

    Software verification is a broad and complex discipline of software engineering whose goal is to assure that software fully satisfies all the expected requirements....
  • Release Management
    Release Management

    Release management defines the mechanisms of building and releasing software, and is included as a component of the Service Support Set in ITIL....
  • Software Deployment
    Software deployment

    Software deployment is all of the activities that make a software system available for use.The general deployment process consists of several interrelated activities with possible transitions between them....
  • Issue management
    Issue management

    Issue Management in Business In business, Issue Management refers to the discipline and process of managing business issues and usually implies using technology to electronically automate the process....
  • Monitoring and reporting
  • Workflow
    Workflow

    A workflow is a depiction of a sequence of operations, declared as work of a person, work of a simple or complex mechanism, work of a group of persons, work of an organization of staff, or machines....


The Integrated Development Environment
Integrated development environment

An integrated development environment also known as integrated design environment or integrated debugging environment is a software application that provides comprehensive facilities to computer programmers for software development....
 (IDE) is evolving; tool vendors are increasingly integrating their products to deliver suites. IDEs are giving way to tools that reach outside of pure coding and into the architectural, deployment, and management phases of an application’s lifecycle: Application Lifecycle Management. The hallmark of these suites is a common user interface, meta model, and process engine that also enable ALM team members to communicate using standards-based architectures and technologies such as Unified Modeling Language
Unified Modeling Language

Unified Modeling Language is a standardized general-purpose modeling language in the field of software engineering.UML includes a set of graphical notation techniques to create abstract models of specific systems....
 (UML).

ALM Tools and Vendors

Name Vendor
LighthouseArtifact Software
Artifact Software

Artifact Software is an online provider of collaborative workspace software for information technology projects. The workspace includes traditional project management software elements such as task management, gantt charts, resource management, issue tracking, and document management as well as application lifecycle management features such a...
Borland Management SolutionsBorland
Borland

Borland Software Corporation is a Computer software company headquartered in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1983 by Niels Jensen, Ole Henriksen, Mogens Glad and Philippe Kahn....
Team Demand - Demand ManagementBorland
Borland

Borland Software Corporation is a Computer software company headquartered in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1983 by Niels Jensen, Ole Henriksen, Mogens Glad and Philippe Kahn....
Team Focus - Project ManagementBorland
Borland

Borland Software Corporation is a Computer software company headquartered in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1983 by Niels Jensen, Ole Henriksen, Mogens Glad and Philippe Kahn....
Team Analytics - Metrics/Reporting and VisibilityBorland
Borland

Borland Software Corporation is a Computer software company headquartered in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1983 by Niels Jensen, Ole Henriksen, Mogens Glad and Philippe Kahn....
Caliber Analyst - Requirements Definition and ManagementBorland
Borland

Borland Software Corporation is a Computer software company headquartered in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1983 by Niels Jensen, Ole Henriksen, Mogens Glad and Philippe Kahn....
Silk Suite - Test Management, Functional and Performance TestingBorland
Borland

Borland Software Corporation is a Computer software company headquartered in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1983 by Niels Jensen, Ole Henriksen, Mogens Glad and Philippe Kahn....
StarTeam - Change and Configuration ManagementBorland
Borland

Borland Software Corporation is a Computer software company headquartered in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1983 by Niels Jensen, Ole Henriksen, Mogens Glad and Philippe Kahn....
SCM4ALLIKAN
HP Quality Center
HP Quality Center

QC is a web based Test Management Tool by Mercury . It is based on the Client Server Technology and has four main modules/tabs-Requirements, Test Plan, Test Lab and Defects for proper management of Testing Processes....
HP
Rational Team ConcertIBM
IBM

International Business Machines Corporation, abbreviated IBM and nicknamed "Big Blue" , is a multinational corporation computer technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, New York, United States....
Endeavour software factoryInfo Support
MKS Integrity
MKS Integrity

MKS Integrity is an enterprise software tool that provides Application Lifecycle Management capabilities spanning requirements management, Software Configuration Management, test management and Release Management disciplines....
MKS Inc.
Visual Studio Team System
Visual Studio Team System

Visual Studio Team System is a set of software development, collaboration, metrics, and reporting tools from Microsoft....
Microsoft
Microsoft

Microsoft Corporation is a multinational corporation computer technology corporation that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of computer software products for computing devices....
DevSuite
Application Development ManagementSerena Software
Serena Software

Serena Software Inc is an Application Lifecycle Management Computer software company headquartered in Redwood City, California. It was founded in June, 1980 by Doug Troxel in San Francisco....
ChangeMan SSMSerena Software
Serena Software

Serena Software Inc is an Application Lifecycle Management Computer software company headquartered in Redwood City, California. It was founded in June, 1980 by Doug Troxel in San Francisco....
ChangeMan ZMFSerena Software
Serena Software

Serena Software Inc is an Application Lifecycle Management Computer software company headquartered in Redwood City, California. It was founded in June, 1980 by Doug Troxel in San Francisco....
Dimensions CMSerena Software
Serena Software

Serena Software Inc is an Application Lifecycle Management Computer software company headquartered in Redwood City, California. It was founded in June, 1980 by Doug Troxel in San Francisco....
Dimensions ExpressSerena Software
Serena Software

Serena Software Inc is an Application Lifecycle Management Computer software company headquartered in Redwood City, California. It was founded in June, 1980 by Doug Troxel in San Francisco....
Dimensions RMSerena Software
Serena Software

Serena Software Inc is an Application Lifecycle Management Computer software company headquartered in Redwood City, California. It was founded in June, 1980 by Doug Troxel in San Francisco....
Incident Management SolutionSerena Software
Serena Software

Serena Software Inc is an Application Lifecycle Management Computer software company headquartered in Redwood City, California. It was founded in June, 1980 by Doug Troxel in San Francisco....
Issue Management SolutionSerena Software
Serena Software

Serena Software Inc is an Application Lifecycle Management Computer software company headquartered in Redwood City, California. It was founded in June, 1980 by Doug Troxel in San Francisco....
Protype ComposerSerena Software
Serena Software

Serena Software Inc is an Application Lifecycle Management Computer software company headquartered in Redwood City, California. It was founded in June, 1980 by Doug Troxel in San Francisco....
Synergy CMTelelogic (IBM)
Change
Change

selfref|For Wikipedia uses, see...
Telelogic (IBM)
DOORSTelelogic (IBM)
Polarion ALMPolarion Software Inc.
Kovair Global LifecycleKovair
CASE SpecGODA Software
Codendi
Codendi

Codendi is an Free and open source software collaborative development platform, , offered by Xerox. In a single interface, it gathers several tools for software development teams: management and versioning of code , bugs, requirements, documents, reporting, tests , plugins Eclipse , &c....
XEROX
Xerox

Xerox Corporation is a global document management company which manufactures and sells a range of color and black-and-white Computer printer, multifunction systems, photo copiers, digital production printing presses, and related consulting services and supplies....
DeployLX Software Protection SystemXHEO
- SaaS solution for ALM targeted at analysts, developers, testers, project managers
Sauce Labs - cloud-based, concurrent Selenium test execution
- semantically enables wikis (currently for Atlassian Confluence): capture of information in semantically enabled forms, enables interoperability with other applications and tools, automatically generates wiki pages
- semantic infrastructure to integrate any ALM tools. Provides "Facebook-like" collaboration dashboard
- methodology tool to define processes and instantiate projects into ALM tools


See also


  • Product lifecycle management
    Product lifecycle management

    Product lifecycle management is the process of managing the entire lifecycle of a product from its conception, through design and manufacture, to service and disposal....
  • Application Lifecycle Framework
    Application Lifecycle Framework

    Application Lifecycle Framework or ALF is an Open System integration and Interoperability Framework for ALM Tools currently under incubation as one of Eclipse projects....
  • Systems Development Life Cycle
    Systems Development Life Cycle

    Systems Development Life Cycle , or Software Development Life Cycle, in systems engineering and software engineering refers to the process of creating or altering systems, and the models and methodologies that people use to develop these systems....
  • Business Technology Optimization
    Business Technology Optimization

    Business Technology Optimization , is an enterprise software product category focused on helping businesses ensure that every dollar invested in information technology, every resource allocated, and every application in development or production meets business goals....
  • OSGi
    OSGi

    The OSGi Alliance is an open standards organization founded in March 1999. The Alliance and its members have specified a Java -based Service platform that can be remotely managed....
  • MKS Inc.