Software, like any other product, has a certain lifecycle. A software product's lifecycle is the time span between its conception and market launch (in the company) and its removal from the market. Software lives as long as it is still in use and continues to be a profitable product on the market. Planning a software lifecycle is a task for a company's strategy management.
In the SAP environment, the focus is more on the applications (that is, the business processes) than the individual SAP systems involved. Therefore, Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) is a top priority for SAP. ALM is an ongoing process for managing the entire life span of an application through active control, development, and maintenance.
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In contrast to Application Lifecycle Management, Software Lifecycle Management contains tools and processes to install, maintain, or upgrade a specific SAP system, which is needed for certain applications and business processes.
Due to the increasing complexity of solution landscapes, every business has integration needs specific to its mission-critical applications. The more integrated and more complex the software applications and solutions are in the customer landscape, the greater the need for an end-to-end approach to lifecycle management. Application Lifecycle Management guarantees extensive support to cover the entire lifecycle of IT applications, from design to decommissioning.
The IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) forms a set of predefined, standardized processes, functions, and roles for the lifecycle of typical IT services that typically occur in every IT infrastructure at larger companies. They involve suggested best practices that can be adapted to the specific needs of a company.
In line with the six phases of application management defined under ITIL v3, the lifecycle also has six phases:
The most important task in the requirements phase is to evaluate scenarios and the corresponding business processes and to check whether they can be realized in the project.
In the design phase, an implementation project manager oversees and directs the deployment of new products, services, or projects for an organization. The project manager creates a blueprint for the project, defines the milestones, and creates the work breakdown structure.
In the build & test phase, the changes are implemented for the first time. These changes might be a solution extension with custom development activities, customizing changes, or integration of a partner or third-party application. Developers perform tests of the functions, while quality assurance prepares functional tests and tests of user acceptance for the next phase. The list of relevant business processes determines which tests are covered. Therefore, the build & test phase involves all relevant kinds of tests, including the following:
Regression tests
Integration tests
Scenario tests
User acceptance tests
Performance tests
The objective of the deployment phase is to transition from the pre-production environment to live operations. In this phase, support structures are created for end users that are available not only during the critical period after going live, but also in the long term.
The longest phase in the lifecycle is the operate phase, in which the end users work with the product. In this phase, any errors that occur are fixed by SAP developers in the form of error corrections.
During the operate phase, it may become apparent (through an analysis of compliance with service level agreements, for example) that optimizations are needed. In the optimize phase, you carry out the activities that are required to improve the results. This can also result in new requirements.
