SDLC: Phases & Models of Software

Development Life Cycle

In this Software Development Life Cycle tutorial, you will learn

What is SDLC?
SDLC is a systematic process for building software that ensures the quality
and correctness of the software built. SDLC process aims to produce high-
quality software that meets customer expectations. The system development
should be complete in the pre-defined time frame and cost. SDLC consists of
a detailed plan which explains how to plan, build, and maintain specific
software. Every phase of the SDLC life Cycle has its own process and
deliverables that feed into the next phase. SDLC stands for Software
Development Life Cycle and is also referred to as the Application
Development life-cycle

Why SDLC?
Here, are prime reasons why SDLC is important for developing a software
system.

 It offers a basis for project planning, scheduling, and estimating

 Provides a framework for a standard set of activities and deliverables
 It is a mechanism for project tracking and control
 Increases visibility of project planning to all involved stakeholders of the
development process
 Increased and enhance development speed
 Improved client relations
 Helps you to decrease project risk and project management plan
overhead
SDLC Phases
The entire SDLC process divided into the following SDLC steps:

SDLC Phases

 Phase 1: Requirement collection and analysis

 Phase 2: Feasibility study
 Phase 3: Design
 Phase 4: Coding
 Phase 5: Testing
 Phase 6: Installation/Deployment
 Phase 7: Maintenance

In this tutorial, I have explained all these Software Development Life Cycle
Phases

Phase 1: Requirement collection and analysis

The requirement is the first stage in the SDLC process. It is conducted by the
senior team members with inputs from all the stakeholders and domain
experts in the industry. Planning for the quality assurance requirements and
recognization of the risks involved is also done at this stage.

This stage gives a clearer picture of the scope of the entire project and the
anticipated issues, opportunities, and directives which triggered the project.

Requirements Gathering stage need teams to get detailed and precise

requirements. This helps companies to finalize the necessary timeline to finish
the work of that system.

Phase 2: Feasibility study

Once the requirement analysis phase is completed the next sdlc step is to
define and document software needs. This process conducted with the help of
'Software Requirement Specification' document also known as 'SRS'
document. It includes everything which should be designed and developed
during the project life cycle.
There are mainly five types of feasibilities checks:

 Economic: Can we complete the project within the budget or not?

 Legal: Can we handle this project as cyber law and other regulatory
framework/compliances.
 Operation feasibility: Can we create operations which is expected by
the client?
 Technical: Need to check whether the current computer system can
support the software
 Schedule: Decide that the project can be completed within the given
schedule or not.

Phase 3: Design
In this third phase, the system and software design documents are prepared
as per the requirement specification document. This helps define overall
system architecture.

This design phase serves as input for the next phase of the model.

There are two kinds of design documents developed in this phase:

High-Level Design (HLD)

 Brief description and name of each module

 An outline about the functionality of every module
 Interface relationship and dependencies between modules
 Database tables identified along with their key elements
 Complete architecture diagrams along with technology details

Low-Level Design(LLD)

 Functional logic of the modules

 Database tables, which include type and size
 Complete detail of the interface
 Addresses all types of dependency issues
 Listing of error messages
 Complete input and outputs for every module
Phase 4: Coding
Once the system design phase is over, the next phase is coding. In this
phase, developers start build the entire system by writing code using the
chosen programming language. In the coding phase, tasks are divided into
units or modules and assigned to the various developers. It is the longest
phase of the Software Development Life Cycle process.

In this phase, Developer needs to follow certain predefined coding guidelines.

They also need to use programming tools like compiler, interpreters, debugger
to generate and implement the code.

Phase 5: Testing
Once the software is complete, and it is deployed in the testing environment.
The testing team starts testing the functionality of the entire system. This is
done to verify that the entire application works according to the customer
requirement.

During this phase, QA and testing team may find some bugs/defects which
they communicate to developers. The development team fixes the bug and
send back to QA for a re-test. This process continues until the software is
bug-free, stable, and working according to the business needs of that system.

Phase 6: Installation/Deployment
Once the software testing phase is over and no bugs or errors left in the
system then the final deployment process starts. Based on the feedback given
by the project manager, the final software is released and checked for
deployment issues if any.

Phase 7: Maintenance
Once the system is deployed, and customers start using the developed
system, following 3 activities occur

 Bug fixing - bugs are reported because of some scenarios which are not
tested at all
 Upgrade - Upgrading the application to the newer versions of the
Software
 Enhancement - Adding some new features into the existing software
The main focus of this SDLC phase is to ensure that needs continue to be met
and that the system continues to perform as per the specification mentioned in
the first phase.

Popular SDLC models

Here, are some of the most important models of Software Development Life
Cycle (SDLC):

Waterfall model in SDLC

The waterfall is a widely accepted SDLC model. In this approach, the whole
process of the software development is divided into various phases of SDLC.
In this SDLC model, the outcome of one phase acts as the input for the next
phase.

This SDLC model is documentation-intensive, with earlier phases

documenting what need be performed in the subsequent phases.

Incremental Model in SDLC

The incremental model is not a separate model. It is essentially a series of
waterfall cycles. The requirements are divided into groups at the start of the
project. For each group, the SDLC model is followed to develop software. The
SDLC life cycle process is repeated, with each release adding more
functionality until all requirements are met. In this method, every cycle act as
the maintenance phase for the previous software release. Modification to the
incremental model allows development cycles to overlap. After that
subsequent cycle may begin before the previous cycle is complete.

V-Model in SDLC
In this type of SDLC model testing and the development, the phase is planned
in parallel. So, there are verification phases of SDLC on the side and the
validation phase on the other side. V-Model joins by Coding phase.

Agile Model in SDLC

Agile methodology is a practice which promotes continue interaction of
development and testing during the SDLC process of any project. In the Agile
method, the entire project is divided into small incremental builds. All of these
builds are provided in iterations, and each iteration lasts from one to three
weeks.

Spiral Model
The spiral model is a risk-driven process model. This SDLC testing model
helps the team to adopt elements of one or more process models like a
waterfall, incremental, waterfall, etc.

This model adopts the best features of the prototyping model and the waterfall
model. The spiral methodology is a combination of rapid prototyping and
concurrency in design and development activities.

Big bang model

Big bang model is focusing on all types of resources in software development
and coding, with no or very little planning. The requirements are understood
and implemented when they come.

This model works best for small projects with smaller size development team
which are working together. It is also useful for academic software
development projects. It is an ideal model where requirements is either
unknown or final release date is not given.

Summary
 The Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) is a systematic process
for building software that ensures the quality and correctness of the
software built
 The full form SDLC is Software Development Life Cycle or Systems
Development Life Cycle.
 SDLC in software engineering provides a framework for a standard set
of activities and deliverables
 Seven different SDLC stages are 1) Requirement collection and
analysis 2) Feasibility study: 3) Design 4) Coding 5) Testing: 6)
Installation/Deployment and 7) Maintenance
 The senior team members conduct the requirement analysis phase
 Feasibility Study stage includes everything which should be designed
and developed during the project life cycle
 In the Design phase, the system and software design documents are
prepared as per the requirement specification document
 In the coding phase, developers start build the entire system by writing
code using the chosen programming language
 Testing is the next phase which is conducted to verify that the entire
application works according to the customer requirement.
 Installation and deployment face begins when the software
testing phase is over, and no bugs or errors left in the system
 Bug fixing, upgrade, and engagement actions covered in the
maintenance face
 Waterfall, Incremental, Agile, V model, Spiral, Big Bang are some of the
popular SDLC models in software engineering
 SDLC in software testing consists of a detailed plan which explains how
to plan, build, and maintain specific software