Software development life cycle (SDLC) is one of the basic concepts used in IT industry to develop a software product. However, with the usage of computers, it is important that everyone, no matter whether it is a technical or a non-technical person should be aware of simple and interesting pattern of developing a software.
This article explains to you by simplifying the concept of development phases of a software to make you aware of how this small application is designed to help you. Following are the seven basic phases in developing a software.
Phase 1 # Requirement gathering
The first phase in SDLC involves gathering requirements of the client. In this phase, once the commitment is made by the software developer to develop software for a customer, the developer gathers the requirement from the user. These include, what the user is looking for in a software, what tasks it has to perform, what inputs it has to take, how the interface should look like, etc.
This is the critical phase of SDLC, as all the development phases depends on the inputs that the developer gets from the user.
Phase 2 #Analysis
After collecting all the requirements from the user, developing company analyze the resources they need to develop a software, it then forms a team and discuss with the team about the requirements taken from the user and the procedure to be followed for developing that application/software. Any changes and modifications are acceptable in this phase only.
Phase 3 #Design
After allocating the resources and team for the development of the software, all the inputs are put in a structure and they create a rough flow of the development process. This is called a flowchart. The flowchart is useful to the technical team for getting clarity about the number of modules, size of code, number of days it is going to take to complete the development, etc.
The technical team then distributes the modules among themselves and start actual programming of developing the software.
Phase 4 #Development
This is the core phase of the development. Actual coding of the software is done in this phase. Developers use their best suitable environment or programming language to develop the software.
Each member of the team is responsible for the module assigned to them and develops that module. After everyone develops the assigned module in a given time, later they integrate all the modules to make the final software. The software is now ready.
Time taken to develop a software depends on the size and complexity of the software.
Phase 5 #Testing
After the software is developed and before it goes to the client, the software is tested whether it is working according to the requirement of the client. They develop or modify it, if required at this phase.
There are many methods of testing a software. They follow one or more methods to evaluate the end product.
Phase 6 #Deployment
The software is now completely ready and delivered to the user. It is deployed (installed) on the client server. The software is now ready to use by the user to perform the tasks.
Phase 7 #Maintenance
It is not final and over when the user starts using the software. With the emerging new technologies it may be necessary to upgrade and do modifications to the existing software to work well. Developers are responsible for maintenance of the software.
With constant usage of the software, there are chances of software getting infected by threats. Therefore, debugging is necessary when it is infected.
These are the seven basic and benchmark phases of developing any software or application.