In the last blog post we covered ADLM and SDLC, their definitions, origins, their taxonomy and how they are connected. In this blog post we will cover ALM, DevOps and EAP(EAPT).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
EAP (EAPT)<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Let\u2019s start off\nwith concept of EAP first; Enterprise Agile Planning or Enterprise Agile\nPlanning Tools (EAPT) is a market term coined by Gartner in recent years. It expands\nthe concept of ADLM from using Agile at team\/project level to implementing Agile\nphilosophy at scale, in order to achieve enterprise class Agile development with\nthe goal to deliver greater value across the enterprise and not just the team\nlevel. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
A Team-centric approach\nto Agile promised the world when it came to management of software development and\nfor the most part it did deliver. However, as the number of Agile teams grew\nwithin an organization it presented its own set of challenges. This is where EAP\ncomes in, it aides in managing the development lifecycle when methodologies such\nas SAFe, LeSS, Disciplined Agile, etc. are implemented to manage enterprise scale\nAgile software\ndevelopment, using key capabilities such as: Project Portfolio Management,\nService Desk Integration, (Enterprise class) Agile Planning, Agile Backlog\nManagement, Release Management etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So where do we stand? And how does EAP fit into our overall\ncontext? Essentially EAP(EAPT) is to ADLM as ADLM is to SDLC. Now that\u2019s a\nmouthful of acronyms. What do we mean by this? Simply put, EAP is the\nmanagement of the development lifecycle, when Agile at scale methodologies such as SAFe or LeSS\nor Disciplined Agile are implemented within an organization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Armed with this information let\u2019s take a look at the taxonomy EAP and how it fits together in the overall grand scheme of things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
![\"EAPT](\"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2020\/03\/EAP.png\")
Looking at the overall taxonomy it is clear that EAP extends\nALDM, while progressively focusing on Agile at scale methodologies. It does\nthis through the inclusion of broad range Agile capabilities, and a defined\nfocus on Agile Project Portfolio Management. Although EAP also includes Release\nManagement and Service Desk Integration as critical capabilities, it falls\nshort in fully integrating IT Operations merging the gap between development\nand operations. This is where DevOps comes in. The real questions are why do we\nneed DevOps now? And what is it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
DevOps<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Whereas SDLC, ADLM and EAP are mostly concerned with\nmanaging the process of developing software, DevOps aims to bridge the gap\nbetween software creation, its deployment and its use. Typically, activities\nsuch as continuous integration and deployment (CI\/CD), and release management\nare generally considered to be a part of “DevOps”. Ultimately the\nidea behind DevOps is all about delivering value, like our previous concepts.\nHowever, the key difference between DevOps and our previous concepts is that it\ndoes this by putting the value of the development effort in the hands of those\nwho can make best use of it, rather than inherently optimizing the\ndevelopmental process. In that sense DevOps is agnostic to the developmental\nmethodology being used.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
![\"DevOps](\"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2020\/03\/DevOps.png\")
Looking at the overall taxonomy, the lines between SDLC,\nADLM and EAP vs DevOps blur a little in the middle of the process when talking\nabout activities such as building, testing and releasing of software. However,\nconcepts such as SDLC, ADLM and EAP generally apply to the preliminary parts of\nthe lifecycle such as requirements gathering or creation of user stories in the\ncase of Agile\nsoftware development, the design\/architecture of the application, and its\noverall development. Whereas when referring to DevOps, one tends to refer to later\nstage activities in the lifecycle such as deployment of software to production\nor product, its monitoring and operations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The logical argument of this view is that the \u201cDev\u201d in\nDevOps is all about development and writing of code, referring to the earlier\nparts of the lifecycle. However, when we think about DevOps and where it adds\nvalue and where it plays a greater role, it\u2019s at the later stages of the\nlifecycle. As such for simplicity sake its best to think of DevOps as referring\nto later stage activities in the lifecycle. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
ALM<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Coming back to where we started our journey, we\u2019ve covered\nSDLC, ADLM, EAP and DevOps, but what about ALM? Where does ALM fit in within\nthis overall schema? What does ALM mean in modern software development? And why\nis it important?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Think of ALM as the overarching narrative that encompasses\nand includes the others. ALM is everything from birth or inception of an\napplication to its end of life. As such, SDLC, ADLM, EAP and DevOps are all a\npart of, and subset of ALM, where SDLC, ADLM and EAP focus on managing the developmental\nside, DevOps focuses on managing the latter half of the lifecycle release,\nmonitoring and maintenance. It is important to note although SDLC, ADLM, EAP\nand DevOps are subsets of ALM they don\u2019t necessarily overlap or are subsets of\none another. Activities such as portfolio management and the service desk integration\nare part of ALM but not automatically a part of the SDLC, ADLM or DevOps. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
ALM also tends to focus on cross-functional collaboration,\nlifecycle traceability & compliance, advance asset reuse & variant\nmanagement, application hazard & risk management, and application security\nmanagement more so than others. The concept of ALM is even broader when it\ncomes to cyber-physical systems, since they tend to deeply integrate physical\nand software components. ALM in this scenario supports not only the typical\nsoftware specific activities but also supports integrations into PLM, MBSE,\nadvance hardware software integration, architecture design and development,\netc. to synchronize the software development processes with the hardware\ndevelopment ones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
![\"ALM](\"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2020\/03\/ALM-522x600.png\")
At the end of the day, like the rest of the lifecycle\nmanagement methodologies ALM, is all about adding value. However, unlike the\nrest, ALM doesn\u2019t only focus on adding value to either developmental effort or\noperational effort. It takes a more holistic approach to an application\u2019s\nlifecycle (i.e. from its inception to its end of life) and as such it adds\nvalue to the entirety of the lifecycle. ALM also aims to add value through\ncross functional collaboration, lifecycle traceability, advance reuse,\ncompliance, etc. This is increasingly important in today\u2019s fast paced software\nlifecycle, where software products need to be released more frequently, with\ngreater complexity, increased variability and with better quality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Returning to the start, now that we know \u201cWhat is what?\u201d in this space, the pertinent question is why is it important? Typically, vendors in this market use a select few combinations of terms such as ALM or DevOps or EAP, etc. in reference to an individual subset of processes or at times even the entire lifecycle, even though they aren\u2019t direct replacements for one another. Hence, it is vital to know exactly what is being covered when these terminologies are being used. We here at Siemens and Polarion, focus on the entirety of lifecycle, we take a broader perspective for software development aim to add value to the entirety of the lifecycle, including not only the traditional activities associated with software development but expanding on them to include activities that are needed for the development of cyber-physical systems. In that sense Polarion has a holistic view of software development within a unified application lifecycle management platform. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Interested in more thought leadership topics about software development? Check out our white papers!<\/p>\n\n\n\n