What are the Application Lifecycle Management Tools? About Application Lifecycle Management

Application lifecycle, is the process from the moment an idea for an application is born until it is removed, that is, in fact, the entire lifespan of the application. Application Lifecycle Management (Application Lifecycle Management - ALM) is a kind of process management that includes stages such as the birth, development, evolution, change, and maintenance of the application. Looking at it a bit more technically, the main goal of this systematic management is to keep the application at the highest quality and to minimize the costs as low as possible. However, to achieve this, there are many points that need to be controlled in the application, and in order to manage the process more cleanly, each point of the application needs to be aware of each other. For example, in an application managed with Agile (you can check our article on this topic), the application is in a constant state of change and development. Every change requires continuous integration, and every integration requires a constantly running test structure. All team members should be aware of every change, and they should be able to intervene where necessary. To facilitate this multi-way communication, application lifecycle management tools have been developed. These tools are divided into certain categories based on their services. The most basic categories are as follows:

• Project Management Tools

• Continuous Integration Tools

• Version Control Tools

• Test Management Tools

• Issue Tracking Tools

• Team Collaboration Tools

• Code Review Tools

Project Management Tools

Project management is the task of planning resources, adjusting the organization, and managing the process to enable the project to reach its goal and fulfill its objectives. The purpose in the project is to efficiently meet the requirements. Its main goal is to produce the product requested by the customer, and in some cases, the customer's requests can be delivered with slight variations. After receiving the requests clearly from the customer/user, project staff including the manager, design team, and developers are fully informed about these requests, and the entire operation is shaped based on them. There are different types/approaches to the management process, and depending on the operation, one of these types can be continued. The approach where the main process is formed by planning and the step taken, as well as the approach where the step taken shapes the main process, the approach where authority manages the process, and the approach where key elements manage the process are divided into four. In general, project managements consist of a initiation, planning and design, construction, monitoring and controlling and completion phases. These phases are managed within these frameworks. There are tools that we can use to facilitate this process and link it to automation. The main ones include Jira, Procore, and WorkFlowMax.

Continuous Integration Tools

Continuous integration is a method used to see whether the changes made in the code to the project's source code disrupt the system or not, and whether other working parts are affected. In continuous integration, the project's code is kept in a single source, and changes are added to the main code after being observed in a local environment. When a change is sent to the continuous integration tool, a build number is generated, and a notification is sent to the person who submitted the change about whether the build was successful or not. Before sending changes made locally, the latest version of the source code is taken locally, and it should be seen that the change works successfully locally.

Let me try to explain this through an example. In a software company, developers A and B are making different changes in the same source. Developer A completes the change and sends it to the system, the build starts, but there is a problem in integration. In this case, a warning is sent to developer A, the build has failed, and the reason for the failure can be seen on the relevant source page in the integration tool. In this case, developer B does not submit their own change until the last build is fixed and successfully completed. This way, a confusion in versioning can be avoided, and the problem can be detected early and addressed quickly is achieved. In continuous integrations, automated integration with tests is also very important. This way, if a change fails the test, it can be detected early and the necessary adjustments can be made. Jenkins, Circle CI, TeamCity are examples of frequently used continuous integration tools.

Version Control Tools

Version control systems are systems that record changes made to the source code. We can say that they keep the history of a project. For example, suppose 50 different changes were made to a code within a year; you can find records of when each change was made, what additions and deletions were made to the code with each change, and see which versions these changes appeared in. If necessary, it allows you to revert to an older version. For example, let's say you noticed that a code that used to work correctly is now malfunctioning and not giving the desired result. In this case, you can check the date of the source code in the version control system, look at the changes made in the code and you can correct this change in a way that does not break the working system. Version control systems also provide the ability to create different branches. Especially in projects with frequent changes and/or critical projects, due to the branching structure, you can submit your changes as a copy on a different branch of your project, and after ensuring that the system is not disrupted, you can transfer your changes to the original branch. Nowadays, the most commonly used version control systems are Github and Gitlab, and thanks to these systems, developers can develop without worrying about 'what if I break something else?’.

Test Management Tools

Developers are human too, and people can make mistakes. The easiest way to prevent and early detection is to run the code through tests. Even the slightest visible change in software can have significant results. For this reason, every development must pass tests successfully before being presented to the customer.

Test management tools can be categorized as Zephyr, Cucumber Studio. But what is test management? It is worth focusing on. The testing process of software includes preparing relevant test scenarios, grouping tests, reporting the results obtained after the code is put to test, and retesting the code for every change made. Test management can be summarized essentially as managing the software testing process. Automated or manual tests are managed in this process. After conducting the necessary planned tests, measurements are reported, then bugs and errors are managed. Test management tools automate tests, track the testing process, and report the results.

Issue Tracking Tools

Before clarifying issue tracking systems, it is useful to address what we mean by 'issue'. In English, it is referred to as issue tracking and in our language, it is commonly used as 'problem tracking'. However, the thing is, "issue" does not directly mean "problem". When you develop a project, there are various stakeholders for a project will exist. Everyone who contacts the project in any way is a stakeholder of that project. This situation leads to questions that need to be answered, supports that need to be provided, problems to be solved and new feature requests that need to be reviewed and developed if necessary are generated. Each of these items is actually a kind of issue. Issue tracking systems primarily list these issues. Those who open these issues can be developers, analysts, test engineers, product owners, or customers. For each issue, parameters like priority level (urgency level), category (question, support, bug, new request, etc.), due date are entered and saved, and fall into the issue list of the relevant team. This way, issues can be addressed in order of priority, and an issue is kept on record along with comments made by the developer. Jira, Github, and Gitlab are among the most commonly used systems. Let's not forget to mention that a tool does not have to serve only one purpose. Therefore, you might see the same tool under multiple categories, just as I didn't mention version control under Jira but under Github and Gitlab.

Team Collaboration Tools

Team collaboration is one of the key factors for success in software development. No matter how high the individual skills are, it is very unlikely for a software development process with weak team collaboration to have a highly efficient result. Let's explain the reasons to understand the importance of the subject. Good team collaboration can be achieved with good internal team communication, and this saves time for the team in product development, directly increasing work and production efficiency. It allows active participation from every member of the team, so different perspectives play a decisive role on the requirements desired by the customer. If we think of the team as a whole, the gears of a working machine are each team member, but with harmonic and qualitative participation, this machine can work at the highest efficiency. It increases the speed of product development, adds depth to the product developed with different perspectives, and since productivity directly increases in a harmonious environment, speed will also increase. In this context, it can be understood how critical the role of team collaboration is. Tools we can use to better manage this process include Slack and Trello. By using these tools, communication can occur within the team through material-based, web, desktop, or mobile means. Highly participative video conferencing, meetings, and group messaging can be conducted. Communication can be integrated with different document programs, and sharing and up-to-date communication can be maintained.

Code Review Tools

The main purpose of code review is to keep the quality and performance of software at a high level. When development in software is under the responsibility of one person, the possibility of performance gaps or potential errors is higher than in situations evaluated by multiple people. Through code review, the development made is reviewed by team members besides the person who made the change, and feedback is given to the developer if necessary, or the person observing takes action to increase the quality of the code. Code review tools generally help maintain this order. For the code block to be reviewed, reviewers are assigned. Reviewers evaluate and rate that code and inform the developer by commenting where necessary, so the code quality can be kept high continuously. Some popular code review tools include Review Board, Crucible, Phabricator, and Gerrit.