An Application Lifecycle in 8 Phases (Continued)

Deployment, Support, and Retirement
Once a program is complete, it must be deployed. This sixth phase should always include a pilot project of some sort, followed by a revision of the deployment strategy if required, then the actual deployment. In some cases, there might even be a step before the pilot project: a proof-of-concept step that provides a link between acceptance and pre-production testing and the operation of the application within the production environment.

In all cases, it is important to put in place special deployment support teams to provide the ability to react quickly in the event of deployment-related problems. It is also important to have a rollback strategy in case of major disasters. Finally, the deployment phase is where knowledge transfer from the development team to the operational team occurs. One output from this knowledge transfer is the initial service-level agreements for the application.

Once a program is deployed, part of the programming or packaging team will move to ongoing support—the seventh phase of the lifecycle. This might involve minor maintenance-related modifications to the application and fixes or service packs. The support phase also involves performance tuning and stability improvements. Part of the objectives for this phase is the support of the service-level agreements that were designed in the deployment stage. In many cases, this is the longest part of the application lifecycle and may very well last for several years if the other aspects of the lifecycle were managed properly.

The eighth and final stage deals with application retirement or replacement. This is often a difficult phase to initiate because people are reluctant to change, especially when the application responds exactly to their needs. A good example is the number of users still running Windows NT even though its replacements have been out for three years. But it is essential for organizations to identify and treat application obsolescence. Sometimes the cost of running an older application outweighs the cost of making the change. This is also the stage that serves to reinitiate the analysis of business requirements and begin the application lifecycle anew.

About the Authors
Danielle Ruest and Nelson Ruest (MCSE, MCT) just released their third book, Windows Server 2003 Pocket Administrator (Osborne McGraw-Hill, 2003), an everyday administration reference. Their second book, Windows Server 2003, Best Practices for Enterprise Deployments (Osborne McGraw-Hill, 2003), is a step-by-step guide for designing enterprise networks with this new operating system. They are also authors of Preparing for .NET Enterprise Technologies (Addison-Wesley, 2001), a book on mastering change in the enterprise. Both work for Resolutions Enterprises, a small Canadian consulting firm that provides services in the information architecture and change management fields. Both can be reached at infos@reso-net.com.