What is Application Lifecycle Management(ALM)?

Application lifecycle management, or ALM, is an integrated system of people, processes, and tools that manages application life from concept to retirement. Application Lifecycle Management(ALM) is similar to Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC), but is more comprehensive in scope. Application Lifecycle Management(ALM) encompasses governance, development, maintenance, and dissolution of software, while Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) focuses primarily on development phases.

Considered as a cohesive bond of development life cycle, Application Lifecycle Management(ALM) always begins with the idea, which leads to application development. After the app is created, the next step is placement in the living environment. When the app loses its business value, it reaches the end of life, where it is no longer used.

Application Lifecycle Management(ALM) can be broken down into three elements: governance, development, and operations.

Application Governance

Application governance is where decisions are made on the application. According to David Chappelle, governance begins with the development of a business case, where the idea for the app is mapped to strategic business outcomes. Governance also includes resource management, data security, and user access. If a business has multiple apps, then portfolio management of the app enters the image as well.

Application Development

The Application Lifecycle Management(ALM) development stage is also called a software development life cycle, or SDLC. Development includes identifying current problems, planning, designing, building, testing, disseminating, and updating applications. Again, depending on your development methodology, these phases may be a separate step (waterfall) or fully integrated (agile or DevOps).

Application Operation

The third element of ALM is the operation. Ops includes application usage and maintenance of technology stack. In waterfalls development, operations are separate stages of development. DevOps brings operations and development together into an integrated and continuous process.

Feel free to contact E-SPIN for the various technology solution that can facilitate your application lifecycle management, and end to end development testing platform solution.