Unit 2 Research Assignment 1

“Businesses and organizations use various types of information systems to support the many processes needed to carry out their business functions. Each of these information systems has a particular purpose or focus, and each has a life of its own. This “life of its own” concept is called the systems development life cycle or SDLC, and it includes the entire process of planning, building, deploying, using, updating, and maintaining an information system. The development of a new information system involves several different, but related activities. These activities, or phases, usually include planning, analysis, design, implementation, and maintenance/support. In other words, SDLC is a conceptual model that guides project management in information system development.”(Wikibooks)
The life cycle starts with preliminary investigation which all the available information needed for the system elements and allocation of the requirements to the software are gathered. Next is the analysis of the requirements. This involves the analyst understanding the functions of the software which is required for the system based off the gathered information. Then is the system design in which the analyst designs and finalizes the best suited design for the system. The difficult step of system coding or development comes next which is where the analyst translates the design and programs into code for the computer. After the previous steps next are the testing phase where the system is testing to see if it works as intended or not. Then is implementation where the system is given to the customer and feedback is returned to insure the program works as intended. And finally system maintenance is the last step, here the analyst insures the system remains working within the proper bounds and functions appropriately and fixes any problems. I think this relates to database development in a number of ways. One is how it starts, gathering information and finding the intent of the system.