Application Lifecycle Management

APPLICATION LIFECYCLE MANAGEMENT (ALM)

INDUSTRY TRENDS IN OPENSOURCE INTEROPERABILITY

Sarath Chander,Principal Architect-QA ServicesITFlux Technologies India Pvt.Ltd,www.itflux.comwww.defecttracking.netSEMINAR PAPER PRESENTATED AT

NATIONAL CONFERENCE ON FREE SOFTWARE-2008CUSAT, KOCHINovember 15, 2008

1

1.

Introduction

Application Lifecycle Management

or

ALM

signifies the extensive and end-to-end domain in the Information Technology Industry that concerns theexhaustive spectrum of practices, processes and platforms involved in the making and maintenance of Software products and Productionenvironments.

ALM

challenges software service vendors as well as business users with enchantingly multifarious possibilities of methodologies andproducts to organize knowledge and artifact flow from Design to Deployment of Software Applications.

ALM

practices define a dynamic and complex

Expenditure environment

for the Industry whereas Software service providers as well as End-users aredirectly or indirectly trying to optimize the Technology and Process costs involved in the making and ownership of sturdy and maintainableapplications by persistent exploration of better options.Quiet obviously, Independent Software Vendors (ISV’s) are essentially competing for this expenditure space by architecting solutions that essentiallypropose better time-to-market, better quality and better maintainability (and therefore better business continuity for the end-user) for the targetapplications.This paper primarily attempts to showcase the following:

•

The tenuously overlapping component landscape suggested by ALM and challenges of establishing optimum ALM frameworks

•

Portfolio positioning of some leading ISV vendors in the ALM spaceThereafter, this document tries to justify the proposition of an Interoperable framework for diverse

ALM

domain products from different creators,to integrate easily and seamlessly for fast customization and configuration of the most appropriate

ALM

processes for each Project. For this, theEclipse-ALF project launched in 2006 is brought into perspective for the laudable Technology standards and Interoperability vision it established.Lastly, I attempt to critically explore and invite discussion on the real ground of motives and actual beneficiaries of the Eclipse-ALF initiative; so asto pose the tentative possibility of the same model being emulated better in line with ‘Open-Source’ ethos for a localized initiative for an open-ended

ALM

framework; one that will signify a positive step towards more cost-effective

ALM

frameworks, that facilitate truly open-source qualitysolutions for Mid-Size/Small Industry & E-Governance.2

2.

The ALM Landscape

Sub-domains or process domains in the

ALM

sphere may be generally classified as Requirement Modeling & Management, Project & Portfoliomanagement interfacing with the Developer environment, Quality Assurance, Build & Version/Release management and Post-Deploymentmonitoring.Each sub-domain itself demonstrates varied complexities & constituencies broadly dictated by the Product domain (Singular freezes like Web PortalsOR multiple Product version roll-outs), Technology architecture variances (AJAX, C/s, Conventional Three Tier, SOA) and the choice ofDevelopmental workflows (AGILE, XTREME Programming, Traditional).A simplified abstraction of an ALM environment is depicted below:3

QualityAssurance & PerformanceRequirements Modeling &ManagementProject Issue &Change ManagementBuild, Version & ReleaseManagement

ALM WORKFLOWS