SE (UNIT 2-TOPIC 1)

It provides a series of steps to be followed to design and develop
a software product efficiently

This is the first step where the user initiates the request for a desired
software product. The user contacts the service provider and tries to
negotiate the terms, submits the request to the service providing organization
in writing.

This step onwards the software development team works to carry on
the project. The team holds discussions with various stakeholders from
problem domain and tries to bring out as much information as possible on
their requirements. The requirements are contemplated and segregated into
user requirements, system requirements and functional requirements. The
requirements are collected using a number of practices as given

 

• studying the existing or obsolete system and software,
• conducting interviews of users and developers,
• referring to the database or
• collecting answers from the questionnaires.

At this step the team analyzes if a software can be designed
to fulfill all requirements of the user, and if there is any possibility of software
being no more useful. It is also analyzed if the project is financially, practically,
and technologically feasible for the organization to take up. There are many
algorithms available, which help the developers to conclude the feasibility of
a software project.

At this step the developers decide a roadmap of their plan and try to
bring up the best software model suitable for the project. System analysis
includes understanding of software product limitations, learning system
related problems or changes to be done in existing systems beforehand,
identifying and addressing the impact of project on organization and
personnel etc. The project team analyzes the scope of the project and plans
the schedule and resources accordingly.

Next step is to bring down whole knowledge of requirements and
analysis on the desk and design the software product. The inputs from users
and information gathered in requirement gathering phase are the inputs of
this step. The output of this step comes in the form of two designs; logical
design, and physical design. Engineers produce meta-data and data
dictionaries, logical diagrams, data-flow diagrams, and in some cases
pseudo codes.

This step is also known as programming phase. The implementation of
software design starts in terms of writing program code in the suitable
programming language and developing error-free executable programs
efficiently

An estimate says that 50% of whole software development process
should be tested. Errors may ruin the software from critical level to its own
removal. Software testing is done while coding by the developers and
thorough testing is conducted by testing experts at various levels of code such
as module testing, program testing, product testing, in-house testing, and
testing the product at user’s end. Early discovery of errors and their remedy is
the key to reliable software

Software may need to be integrated with the libraries, databases, and
other program(s). This stage of SDLC is involved in the integration of software
with outer world entities.

This means installing the software on user machines. At times, software
needs post-installation configurations at user end. Software is tested for
portability and adaptability and integration related issues are solved during
implementation.

This phase confirms the software operation in terms of more efficiency
and less errors. If required, the users are trained on, or aided with the
documentation on how to operate the software and how to keep the
software operational. The software is maintained timely by updating the code
according to the changes taking place in user end environment or
technology. This phase may face challenges from hidden bugs and realworld unidentified problems.