ALM - Application Lifecycle Management - Management of lifecycle of applications

The most complex problem at implementation of the ALM tools is misunderstanding by people of development process. Often the management believes that using ALM it will be possible to adjust work on strictly certain scheme. However everything cannot in advance be planned. In application development often it is necessary to make several iterations on each step, to release intermediate versions and to gradually increase functionality of the application. The ALM system should not limit actions of developers, and promote process.

In the IT industry like to talk about barriers between IT and business, however in the IT structure there is a mass of less noticeable barriers which can follow ways of careless system integrator.^[1]

Let's consider, for example, one of the most disputable and the subjects which are hotly discussed in IT now — methodology of DevOps and everything that is connected with it. As short characteristic of all actions connected with transfer of the developed application in IT service for real operation, these words sound rather harmlessly. But by and large, between developers of corporate applications and specialists, managing directors of IT infrastructure of the enterprise, there is a misunderstanding wall. Programmers often accuse IT service of insufficient flexibility, and the specialists managing daily IT transactions — of ignoring of restrictions and requirements to a production infrastructure in which the applications created by them should be run.

This tension causes growth of interest in the technology of management of lifecycle of applications (Application Lifecycle Management — ALM) representing a set of the management tools designed with the purpose to provide to programmers and the staff of IT service more clear understanding of an essence of the developed application and infrastructure in which this application should be run. The main idea is that simplification of cooperation between developers and IT specialists will lead to more effective functioning of all corporate information environment. The problem is that implementation of ALM has few chances in a situation when two parties, cooperation between which is necessary for providing a project success, begin to shift at each other responsibility for the arising difficulties.

For successful implementation of ALM methodology the system integrator should rise over the level of mutual recriminations in IT department. As considers Gene Pool, the marketing vice president of department of IBM Rational Software, it means search and attraction to work of the Chief information officer or the chief financial officer capable to realize how many money is lost by the customer due to the lack of harmonious work of all services of IT department. Error correction in the application on late project stages of development means extremely high expenses. If the necessity of such correction is caused by the assumptions of the developer of made earlier in what environment the application will function, and these assumptions are eventually incorrect, then the cost of all project increases many times or the customer will be forced to upgrade the infrastructure as appropriate.

Of course, on elimination of such contradictions in IT infrastructure of the organizations considerable means can leave. However the only ultimate goal of this work should consist in creation and implementation of set of technologies of management which would allow programmers and IT transactions specialists to cease to prevent work of each other. Than programmers spend more time, discussing issues of cooperation with IT specialists, less time at them remains to those directly on development. What more applications will be created by, especially the developed infrastructure will be necessary and it is, of course, good news to resellers.

In general the debate over DevOps is definitely useful to resellers and integrators. The problem is in to being involved in the internal conflicts connected with desire to execute in parallel too many IT projects. If the customer does not accept the concept of ALM, it is actually very good indicator of its insufficient maturity and weak competence of management of IT. This in itself allows to assume that it is better for reseller to steer clear of such customer as probability is high that such client will bring much more problems, than profits.

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