What is SDLC (Software Development Life Cycle)?

All industries have undergone a digital transition. Whether you are creating software or any digital product to run your business operations or selling it directly to clients, your company needs to establish trust in it while maintaining the speed and agility necessary to remain competitive in your industry.

And in the era where we all are always demanded to deliver more than our expectations, SDLC (Software Development Life Cycle) is the way to accomplish more than one can imagine. Keep reading on and learn more about SDLC, how it benefits and what are the popular practices.

Table of Content

What is the SDLC?

Benefits of SDLC

SDLC Stages

SDLC Methodologies

At the end

What is the Software Development Life Cycle?

The software development life cycle aka Application development life cycle is an amalgamation of standard business practices for developing software applications. Typically, the whole cycle consists of six to eight stages, including Planning, Requirements, Design, Building, Document, Test, Deploy, and Maintain. Depending on the size and complexity of the project, a leading web app development company will combine, divide, or eliminate steps. A software development initiative must include these fundamental elements.

The SDLC is a tool for tracking and enhancing the development process. It enables a detailed examination of every stage of the procedure and promotes efficiency at all stages. As the demand for software and developers rises and processing capacity increases exponentially, Software must be provided more quickly with lowered costs. In addition, the expectations of clients must be kept or surpassed. And that’s where SDLC comes in to aid the accomplishment of these objectives through the detection and correction of inefficiencies.

How the Software Development Life Cycle works

Simply put, the Software Development Life Cycle is a list of all the stages required to build a software program. It minimizes wastage and enables maximum efficiency in the development process. Additionally, regular monitoring and evaluation assure that the project runs smoothly and that the investment is worthwhile.

Many firms will divide these steps into easier-to-manage chunks. Three different sorts of planning are possible: a cost-benefit analysis, marketing research, and technology research. Other activities might interact with one another. The testing and development phases can coexist as developers are responsible for fixing errors that arise during testing.

Here are a few of the main benefits of a secure SDLC strategy

• It is safer to use your program.
• Every stakeholder is aware of the security issues.
• Early design flaw detection prevents them from being coded into existence.
• Due to the early discovery and correction of problems, you lower your costs.
• Lowers the organization’s overall underlying business risks.

Stages of Software Development Life Cycle

Define Requirements

This phase is where the team collects information and defines current challenges, requirements, and customers’ expectations related to particular app development. The activities included in this stage are: drawing up a detailed plan, documenting the project, and selecting the right resources. By doing so, the team can map directions and gather necessary insights to deliver tech solutions. 

Design and Prototyping

The team decides on the architecture and design of the software solution during this phase of the project. This encompasses developing design documentation and coding standards and researching the frameworks, runtimes, tools, or techniques that will assist the team in fulfilling the priorities outlined in the requirements collecting phase.

Prototyping is also a part of this stage. As part of a methodically organized software development approach, a prototype is equivalent to the initial form of any digital product. It gives a practical sense of how the application seems and operates. Stakeholders can see this as a ” more concrete ” solution. Developers and designers can utilize suggestions to enhance the application. Prototyping changes are less expensive to implement than rewriting existing code to apply changes in the development phase.

Software Development

This is the phase where implementation begins. On feature development and coding tasks, several independent teams and individuals work together. Within the development environment, developers create their codebases before merging them with the codebases of other cooperating teams.

The feedback from the development teams is examined for potential changes in the design strategies even when the requirements analysis and design choices have already been established.

Software testing and deployment, the most significant step in the SDLC pipeline, are supported by this step.

Testing

Now comes one of the crucial steps to check the performance of the software: Testing

The following steps are undertaken during this phase:

Find and name potential problems that need fixing or addressing.

Developing a test plan is based on predetermined software requirements. The test strategy is laid out by:

• Determining the available testing resources.
• Giving testers directives and assignments.
• choosing the tests that will be run
• Choosing what data to provide to technical executives and decision-makers.

To enhance test results, testers frequently collaborate with development teams and update the codebase.

Before moving on to the latter stages of deploying and distributing the product, teams frequently repeat the development and testing phases multiple times.

Deployment

Deployment can be difficult as well. One instance can be switching from a previously designed application to a company-wide database. The database uses many other systems, so integrating the upgrade might require additional time and effort.

The software is installed into a working environment during this phase of the project. The software service’s customers and users get access to the work that has been gathered, designed, built, and tested. This procedure entails establishing a software deployment strategy for delivering the modifications to a customer as well as providing infrastructure within an on-premises or cloud provider.

Maintenance

The application is operationalized during this stage of the project to make sure there are no problems or events connected to the deployment. Analyzing, comprehending, and keeping an eye on the configuration of the network, the infrastructure, and the functionality of the services in use are all possible tasks at this point in the project. In the case of any problems or modifications that may have an impact on a customer or user base, this process involves incident management or resolution.

SDLC Methodologies

In conventional SDLC approaches like Waterfall, the phases mentioned above are completed sequentially and independently by various teams. These phases are carried out using the Agile methodology in quick, dynamic, progressive deployments.

Waterfall

The traditional approach to development is the Waterfall SDLC model. The project continues into the following stage once each phase is finished. This model has been tried and proven, and it is effective. The Waterfall methodology has the benefit of allowing you to assess the efficacy and consistency of each process before moving on. Nevertheless, because one stage must end before the next can begin, its speed is constrained.

Agile

Developers created the AGILE model to prioritize the needs of the client. This approach places a lot of emphasis on user intervention and engagement. This fixes a lot of the issues with earlier software that was complicated to use. Additionally, it greatly improves the software’s responsiveness to user feedback. Agile aims to swiftly release software cycles to adapt to a shifting market. A capable staff with great communication skills is necessary for this. By relying too much on client feedback, it might also result in a project deviating from its original course.

DevOps

The operations, or the users of the program, are integrated into the development cycle by the DevOps security paradigm. This aims to increase the usefulness and relevance of apps, much like Agile. The input from actual software users on the design and implementation processes is a key benefit of this methodology. Its requirement for active cooperation and communication is one downside. Parts of the development process can be automated to reduce those extra expenditures. According to Zippia, 71% of U.S. companies are using Agile over DevOps.

Conclusion

DevOps and Agile SDLC frameworks encourage cross-functional teams to collaborate across these phases. For example, the DevOps model promotes collaboration between Developers and QA engineers for ongoing development, testing, and deployment tasks. To find software flaws before it’s too late to correct them, the testing process is also moved left and early in the SDLC pipeline. Domain experts, architects, systems developers, engineers, and leaders all have a stake in delivering high-quality software. If you’d like to deliver digital products with genuine value, then contact us to disrupt the market.