Application Lifecycle Management(ALM) vs. SDLC

Application Lifecycle Management(ALM) is the journey from idea to a product or an application that is a result of rigorous, collaborative efforts of product owner, system analyst, software developers and testers. Application Lifecycle is an ever iterative and evolutionary process and a crucial one.

The Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC) is a process of creating or altering software systems, and refers to the models and methodologies that people use. SDLC concept thus underpins different software development methodologies that form the framework for planning and controlling the creation of a software. We have tried to keep the definition of SDLC simple:

Unlike SDLC, which is a one-time process, Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) is a continuous process of managing the life of an application through governance, technology development and maintenance. Scrum is the most basic and beneficial way for any organization looking to have Agile Project Management. ALM is the marriage of business management to software engineering made possible by tools that facilitate and integrate requirements management, architecture, coding, testing, tracking, and release management.

ALM should not be confused with SDLC (Software Development Lifecycle) as SDLC is a narrower concept. SDLC has its origin and practice in Software Services Industry, specifically with application development focus. SDLC, for example, does not involve product ideation and customer support. Thus, SDLC can be seen as a part of ALM as ALM covers a vast area. A SDLC should end with a Release or Deployment of a commercial version. But ALM spans all iterative releases of various versions made for a particular Software. In short, ALM exists till the Application/Software exists!

This iterative part of lifecycle is illustrated below:

Maximizing the value of the applications we create means doing each and every element of ALM well. Achieving this goal isn’t easy, especially when today’s ALM tools aren’t as well integrated as they need to be. Yet there’s no way around it: Taking a broad, holistic view of ALM is essential for improving this critical business process.

We bring SoftALM^TM , which helps you integrate all the ALM elements with utmost flexibility and ease! It is the result of immense research and experience of working with software product vendors on ALM from Informatics to Telecom sector: