Section 18.2. What is life cycle management?


18.2. What is life cycle management?

Life cycle management refers to the tools and practices meant to support software customers throughout the entire life cycle of applications. It's composed of three phases:


Implementation

The design, testing, and setup of business processes, landscapes, and systems. Implementation is especially concerned with the concept of software logistics, which might also be thought of as a software supply chain: what is the most effective and efficient way to sync Independent Software Vendors' (ISVs') application development with their customers' needs and then deliver new features without disrupting key processes?


Operations

Running applications within the landscape once they've been installed and keeping them running smoothly. Tasks and responsibilities that might be filed under operations include ensuring that an application or enterprise service is running, checking to see how busy it is, ensuring that it's load balanced, checking to see where it's currently deployed within the landscape, and checking whether any components are reporting errors. In this phase, the complexity of IT landscapes has so far outstripped the application-focused tools used for maintenance. New tools and management processes are needed to knit all of these functions into a single interface for maximum efficiency and lower TCO.


Continuous improvement and change management

Reconfiguring, patching, upgrading, and even replacing and/or consolidating applications and services within the landscape. This is perhaps the most critical of these three phases because many of any given company's most mission-critical applications have already been in use for years, just as the bulk of SAP's customers already own SAP R/3. The concept of software logistics is especially relevant in this phase as well: how often and how rapidly can IT improve and upgrade systems without incurring significant downtime?




Enterprise SOA. Designing IT for Business Innovation
Enterprise SOA: Designing IT for Business Innovation
ISBN: 0596102380
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2004
Pages: 265

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