Just thought of the difference between Software Development Life Cycle and Application Lifecycle Management…as similar as they sound, and as different as they are conceptually, I often find people confusing the two. It’s probably easier to see the difference if you think of SDLC as one of the ALM stages or as a part of ALM.

The notion of ALM presupposes something more than solely developing a software application from the bottom up and getting it to work, it’s much more than that. ALM starts a lot earlier than development and ends much after the application is actually developed and ready to be used. ALM starts when the idea to create a software solution to a certain problem is born, in business. It starts as a new challenge, maybe a need, or that very first vague and blurry vision. After it’s thoroughly discussed and formulated, the idea gets into the SDLC stage of ALM, where developers, coders, testers, project managers, etc. get to work on it.

But that is not at all the final stage. After your solution is ready, it needs to actually be “up and solving” and executing the tasks it was designed for. The application here needs to be promoted, marketed, sold and implemented. This stage may take years, or, in the worst case, less. =)

Hope this clears things out a bit.