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SDLC -
Software Development Life Cycle
Software products, which don’t happen
to be user friendly just, don’t find any place in a highly
competitive market of this modern era, although they might have been developed
with the help of the best available technology. The ease of use of the product
is of paramount importance compared to its internal technology, which the
customer is not going to see.
Thus for the creation of Innovative
Software products, the Development Life Cycle undergoes six phases like:
1) Initial Phase
2) Analysis Phase
3) Design phase
4) Coding Phase
5) Testing Phase
6) Delivery and Maintenance phase
Phase – 1: Initial Phase: Involves Interaction with the customer and capturing all
the requirements.
Personnel Involved: 1) Business Annalist – BA & 2) Engagement Manager -
EM
Process Involved: This phase begins with a technical meeting between the Business
Analyst & the customer. The Business Analyst (BM) understands all the
requirements from the customer & prepares comprehensive requirements
document with the help of standard templates & check sheets used by the
company. The requirements document forms the basis for further study &
action by the Engagement Manager (EM).
The Engagement Manager tries to hunt for extra requirements if any, which might
not be apparent immediately but might involve extra cost. To resolve ambiguous
requirements if any, the Engagement Manager organizes demonstration of a
prototype if necessary. Such action of quick demonstration of a prototype,
which is nothing but a rapidly developed model for the customer is found
extremely helpful to remove ambiguities from the requirements on one hand &
help winning the confidence of the customer on the other.
Ultimate objective of this phase is to prepare a most comprehensive customer
requirements document. Many companies call it with different names like:
# BRS: Business Requirement Specification.
# FRS: Functional Requirement Specification.
# URS: User Requirement Specification.
# CRS: Client / Customer Requirement Specification.
# BDD: Business Design Document.
# BD : Business Document.
Depending upon the system followed by various companies,
sometimes a single document is maintained, while some companies may go in for
two documents. In this case, Broad / outlining information is recorded in the
BRS (Business Requirement Specification), while detailed information is
recorded in FRS (Functional Requirement Specification).
Phase – 2: Analysis Phase: Involves
Feasibility Study, Broad Planning, Technology selection, Requirement analysis
etc.
Personnel Involved: 1) System Annalist – SA, 2) Project Manager – PM & 3)
Team Manager -TM
Process Involved: To understand the nature of the program to be developed,
the System Annalist focuses on understanding the information domain of the
software, its necessary functions, behaviors, performance and necessary
interfaces etc. The major objective of the analysis phase is to find out the
need and to define the problem, which needs to be solved.
The process covers four distinct analytical operations
like:
1) Feasibility Study: Involves detailed study of all the requirements to
ascertain as to whether it is possible to meet all the requirements or not.
There may be a need for the development team to visit the customer place for
study of their system. They development team may investigate the need for
possible software automation within the boundaries of the given system.
2) Broad Planning: Involves an outline document on planning of all resource
and time wise planning.
3) Technology Selection: Involves identification, analysis & compilation of
various tools & technologies, which would be needed to accomplish the
project successfully.
4) Requirement analysis: Involves identification & compilation of various
requirements of human resources, hardware & software, which would be needed
to accomplish the project successfully.
Ultimate objective of this phase is to prepare a most
comprehensive document called SRC or Software Requirement Specification.
Phase – 3: Design Phase: Involves hard core design activities like 1) HLD - High
Level Designing & 2) LLD - Low Level Designing
Personnel Involved: 1) Chief Architect – CA is responsible for High Level
Designing, 2) Technical Lead – TL is responsible for Low Level Designing
Process Involved: The Chief Architect – CA, starts The entire designing
process. This involves subdivision of the entire project into various modules
& the process is adequately explained with the help of flow charts &
diagrams. Thereafter, the Technical Lead – TL further subdivides these main
Modules into sub modules with the help of Unified Modeling Language - UML. The
technical lead is responsible for creating the Pseudo Code which is a
comprehensive set of instructions written in English language & are meant
for guiding the actual code developers.
Ultimate objective of this phase is to prepare a Technical Design Document -
TDD.
Phase – 4: Coding Phase: Involves actual Programming or Coding.
Personnel Involved: Code Developers or Programmers
Process Involved: The design needs to be translated into a machine-readable
form. There comes the process of code generation. With the help of Pseudo Code
written by the Technical Lead – TL during the Design Phase, Developers carry
out the development of the actual source code. The entire coding process is
bound by stipulated coding standards defined by the company.
Ultimate objective of this phase is to prepare a Source Code Document - SCD.
Phase – 5: Testing Phase: Involves rigorous testing of the application developed by
the programmers.
Personnel Involved: Testing Engineers.
Process Involved: Different testing methodologies are practiced to detect
the software bugs, which happen to take birth during the previous phases.
Various testing tools and methodologies are available these days. Some
companies create their own testing tools, which are custom made to suit their
own development functions.
# In fact the testing process begins right from the customer requirement
document. A good test engineer starts his work by thorough study of the
requirement document. In case of any doubt arising during understanding of
customer requirements, the test engineer raises a Review Report –RR, which
contains details of all the doubts.
# Having clarified all the doubts & ambiguities, and after having a
thorough understanding of the requirements, the test engineer shall write the
test cases with the help of company specific test case templates.
# Execution of the test cases upon the release of the
first build by the developers. This follows recording of defects in a defect
profile document.
# The defect profile document is transferred to the
developers for improvements / eradication of defects found by them. The testing
process halts here till next build with improvements is released by the
developers.
# The entire testing process involving execution of test
cases is repeated on the new build. This process of code improvement,
subsequent testing on new builds & finding of defects continues again and
again till the product is free from defects.
# The testing process is decided to be stopped after
gaining reasonable confidence of product being defect free
Ultimate objective of this phase is to produce a Quality
Product.
Phase – 6: Delivery and Maintenance
phase: Involves Installing the newly
developed application under the client environment.
Personnel Involved: Senior Testing Engineers who are entrusted the task of
Deployment Engineers.
Process Involved:
# Delivery: After the code is appropriately tested, it is approved for
release, it is deployed into a production environment. The deployment of
application is done with the help of guidelines provided in the application
deployment document.
# Maintenance: After the deployment of the application, client may
encounter many task-based problems.
Maintaining and
enhancing the software to cope up with newly discovered problems or new
requirements can take far more time than the initial development of the
software. It may be necessary to add some code, which does not fit the original
design to correct an unforeseen problem. It may be that the customer is
requesting more functionality, and some code can be added to take care of his
requests.
