SDLC : Software Development Life Cycle

Software Development Life Cycle

(SDLC) abbreviated as Software Development Life Cycle is a process used by the software industry to design, develop and test high-quality software. It aims to produce high-quality software that meets or exceeds customer expectations, reaches completion within time and cost estimates. Below diagram depicts various phases involved in SDLC.

Requirement Phase

Requirement gathering and analysis is the most important phase in the software development lifecycle. Business analyst collects the requirement from the customer/client as per the clients business needs and documents the requirements in the business requirement specification (document name varies depends upon the Organization).

Analysis Phase

Once the requirements are gathered and analysed, the next step is to define and document the product requirements and get them approved by the customer. This is recorded through the SRS (Software Requirement Specification) document. It  consists of all the product requirements to be designed and developed during the project life cycle

Design Phase

This phase has two steps:

1. HLD – High-Level Design – It gives the architecture of the software product to be developed and is done by architects and senior developers
2. LLD – Low-Level Design – It is carried out by senior developers. Here, it gives you insights about how each and every feature in the product should work and how every component should work.

The outcome from this phase is the High-Level Document and Low-Level Document which works as an input to the next phase.

Development Phase

Developers of all levels (seniors, juniors, freshers) are involved in this phase. This is the phase where you start building the code for the software.

Testing Phase

When the software is ready, it is sent to the testing department where they test it thoroughly for different defects. Testing of a software is carried out either manually or using automated testing tools and ensure that each and every component of the software works fine. Once the software is error-free, it goes to the next stage, which is Implementation.

Deployment & Maintenance Phase

Once the product is error free, it is delivered/deployed to the customer for their use. Deployment is done by the Deployment/Implementation engineers. As the customers start using the developed system, then the actual problems come up and needs to be solved from time to time. Detecting and solving these issues found by the customer comes in the maintenance phase.