Explaining The Software Development Life Cycle

By Author: Daniel Jose
Total Articles: 28
Comment this article

Today, organizations and businesses cannot survive without using various products and services provided by the rapidly evolving IT technology. They are required to implement these solutions in their daily business activities in order to successfully compete with their rivals and stay ahead of them. The whole business setup has now become heavily dependent on software solutions and IT products.

The vendors who offer software application development services follow a proper strategy while developing applications. They follow a proper software development life cycle (SDCL) while creating solutions for their clients. Although there are many types of SDLCs that are used by developers depending upon the requirements of the solution but they all roughly follow a basic strategy. Let’s take a look at the most basic yet highly popular SDLC followed by offshore web development services providers.

The Requirement Gathering Phase: This is the very first step in any project. In this phase, the requirements of the clients and users are gathered. Special focus is kept on the ...
... user requirements as they are the ones who are going to use the product on a regular basis. Business analysts, marketing team and clients usually go through lengthy discussions to scratch out the exact requirements of the solution. Further, these requirements are also analyzed to rule out those which are actually not feasible.

The Designing Phase: Next comes the designing phase where the design of the actual application is created. This includes a complete overview of how each component of the solution will be created and where it will fit in the assembled product.

The Implementation Phase: Once a proper design of the software is generated, the project moves to the development team. Here the actual components of the solution are prepared. Each component is prepared separately.

Testing Phase: The testing phase is a very crucial stage where each and every component is checked for performance. There are many types of testing strategies that might be followed as per the requirements of the project. Some might even require testing of components during the development phase as it helps in catching and correcting errors while the component is still under development.

Installations Phase: Once each and every component has passed through the testing phase, they are combined together to form the complete solution. Then it is installed and executed at the desired location or computer system as required by the client. Usually, the whole system goes through the testing phase again in order to ensure a bug free and error free solution.

Maintenance: Each and every IT solution implemented in an organization requires regular maintenance for smooth and error free execution. There will always be some or the other issue with the solution, no matter how perfectly it is developed. The maintenance phase takes care of it. It is strongly recommended that clients retain the services of the web development outsourcing company who developed the solution for maintenance purpose as they know the system better than anyone else.

This is the normal format of SDLC that is used by most of the application development services providers all over the world. A really good offshore vendor will suggest you the most simple and effective life cycle strategy for your solution. Make sure that you gather enough knowledge before you start discussing your project with any vendor. It will help you in choosing the right vendor for your project.