Attendance Monitoring System Systems Development Life Cycle Essay Sample free essay sample

In systems development. the enticement to jump certain prescribed undertakings associated with certification. combined with the fastpaced life of IT professionals. can make an environment that is non able to decently use the best patterns of systems development. However. the employment of best patterns has proven over the old ages to supply returns in both efficiencies and effectivity. In all types of audit. the employment of any set of â€Å"best practices† is by and large seen by hearers as a positive impact on the quality of the information. systems or operations being audited. In the instance of the systems development life rhythm ( SDLC ) . some patterns provide extra benefits in footings of IT audits. Specifically. throughout the stairss in the SDLC. certification is being created that provides valuable possible beginnings of grounds for IT hearers. In other words. using SDLC as it is prescribed in the industry is a control. In this article. the conventional stages of the SDLC—and how each one can supply this possible evidence—will be discussed. Different groups use different lists of stairss in the SDLC. but about all agree on the same elements. Herein. a list of eight stages is used to show this procedure of analysing an entity’s SDLC. A sum-up of six of the eight stages and illustrations of related certification are depicted in figure 1. Other certification should be ; those contained in the figure are for exemplifying intents. Phase One: Systems Planing In stage one. systems are planned utilizing a strategic attack. Executives and others evaluate the effectivity of systems in footings of run intoing the entity’s mission and aims. This procedure includes general guidelines for system choice and systems budgeting. Management develops a written long-run program for systems that is strategic in nature. The program will alter in a few months. but much grounds exists that such planning wages dividends in footings of effectual IT solutions over the long term. This stage is similar to IT administration. and the two are rather compatible. Therefore. the first thing an IT hearer would wish to see is the execution of IT administration activities. During this stage. several paperss will be generated. They include the long-run program. policies for choice of IT undertakings. and a long-run and short-run IT budget. every bit good as preliminary feasibleness surveies and undertaking mandates. Undertaking proposals should hold been documente d when submitted to direction. and a undertaking agenda should be that contains the sanctioned undertakings ( see figure 1 ) . The presence of these paperss illustrates a structured. formal attack to systems development and. as such. illustrates an effectual planning system for IT undertakings and systems. It besides demonstrates a formal mode of O.K.ing IT undertakings. IT hearers will desire to verify the presence of a systems be aftering stage ( or IT administration activities ) and take a sample of the paperss to verify the effectivity of that system. The same audit process will be true for all of the other seven stages and. therefore. will non be repeated in the narrations of stages two through eight. Phase Two: Systems Analysis In the systems analysis stage. IT professionals gather information demands for the IT undertaking. Facts and samples to be used in the IT undertaking are gathered chiefly from terminal users. A systems analyst or developer so processes the demands. bring forthing a papers that summarizes the analysis of the IT undertaking. The consequence is some sort of certification. such as a systems analysis study ( see figure 1 ) . Other certification should be. In consequence. systems analysis illustrates the entity’s ability to be thorough with its systems development. Phase Three: Conceptual Design Following comes the conceptual design stage. In stage two. systems analysis. the demands have been gathered and analyzed. Up to this point. the undertaking is on paper and each user group has a somewhat different position of what it should be. At this point. a conceptual design position is developed that encompasses all of the single positions. A assortment of possible paperss could be the end product of this stage. Figure 1 uses a information flow diagram ( DFD ) . developed to a general degree at this point. as an illustration. The point is that one or more of these paperss should be if the entity is following the SDLC exhaustively. Phase Four: Systems Evaluation and Selection During the systems rating and choice. directors and IT professionals choose among options that satisfy the demands developed in stages two and three. and run into the general guidelines and strategic policies of stage one. Part of the analysis of options is to make a more thorough and elaborate feasibleness study—actually. several types of feasibleness surveies. A proficient feasibleness survey examines whether the current IT substructure makes it executable to implement a specific option. A legal feasibleness survey examines any legal branchings of each option. An operational feasibleness survey determines if the current concern procedures. processs and accomplishments of employees are equal to successfully implement the specific option. Last. a scheduled feasibleness survey relates to the firm’s ability to run into the proposed agenda for each option. Each of these should take to a written feasibleness study. Another facet of this stage is a cost-benefit analysis. Qua ntifying touchable and intangible costs and benefits. an comptroller should be able to find the value of each option. This stage is associated with how to measure the value of IT. Finally. since a unequivocal pick among options is being made. a choice study should be written to explicate the grounds behind the pick and. perchance. include the costbenefit and feasibleness surveies. Phase Five: Detailed Design At this point. IT professionals have chosen the IT solution. The DFD design created in stage three is â€Å"fleshed out† ; that is. inside informations are developed and ( hopefully ) documented. Examples of the types of certification created include use instances. Unified Modeling Language ( UML ) diagrams. entity relationship diagrams ( ERDs ) . relational theoretical accounts and normalized informations diagrams. Other systems design paperss could besides be. IT professionals frequently do a walk-through of the package or system to see if any defects in the system can be detected during development. That walk-through should besides be documented. To sum up this stage. a elaborate design study should be written to explicate the stairss and processs taken. It would besides include the design paperss referred to antecedently. Phase Six: Scheduling and Testing Systems For in-house development of applications. current best patterns include the usage of object-oriented ( OO ) plans and processs. IT hearers should be interested in the IT programming shop’s pick of tools and processs. Some concerns are locked into bequest systems and applications and. therefore. would non be expected to utilize OO ( e. g. . Bankss ) . IT hearers would besides be interested in programming flow charts as certification. No component of SDLC is more of import than systems proving. Possibly none of the stages has been more criticized than proving for being absent or performed at a deficient degree. Sometimes direction will seek to cut down the costs of an IT undertaking by cutting out or cut downing the testing. Sound proving includes several cardinal factors. The testing should be done offline before being implemented online. Individual faculties should be tested. but even if a faculty passes the trial. it should be tested in the endeavor system offline before being employed. That is. the faculties should be tested as stand-alone and so. in concurrence with other applications. tested systemwide. Test information and consequences should be kept. and end users should be involved in the testing. Figure 1 does non include this stage. but clearly the trial consequences should be documented. The IT hearer will desire to derive some confidence that proper testing of applications and systems has occurred before they are being put into operations. Phase Seven: Systems Execution At this point. the system should be ready to deploy. The last measure before deployment is a user credence sign-off. No system should be deployed without this credence. The user credence study should be included in the certification of this stage. After deployment. nevertheless. the SDLC procedures are non finished. One cardinal measure after execution is to carry on a postimplementation reappraisal. This reviews the cost-benefit study. hints existent costs and benefits. and sees how accurate the projections were and if the undertaking is able to bring forth an equal return. The systems design is besides reviewed and compared to the public presentation of the system to see if the information demands processes ( stages two and three ) were performed adequately. In general. the clip. costs and demands are the three chief elements of any IT undertaking. and those elements should be benchmarked someway. This measure besides reviews all of the system certification to find if it is equal f or the following stage: care. If it is developed decently and harmonizing to SDLC best patterns. it will be equal. At a lower limit. a user credence study and a postimplementation study should be documented during this stage. Phase Eight: Systems Care IT professionals and IT hearers know that 80 per centum of the costs and clip spent on a package system. over its life rhythm. occur after execution. It is exactly for this ground that all of the antecedently mentioned SDLC certification should be required. Obviously. the entity can leverage the 80 per centum cost by supplying first-class certification. That is the topographic point for the largest cost nest eggs over the life of the system. It is besides the statement against cutting corners during development by non documenting stairss and the system. As alterations occur. there should be change mandates. alteration execution and proving paperss created during those alterations. Testing during the care stage should be able to utilize most of the original trial informations and trial consequences. significantly cut downing the clip and attempt necessary to adequately prove the alterations. Decision Using the best patterns of SDLC is non merely a good thought in the IT industry ; it serves as a control over systems development for IT hearers and provides certification that the IT hearer can utilize to derive confidence over the adequateness and effectivity of the entity’s SDLC procedures. IT hearers are able to verify that SDLC best patterns are runing efficaciously by analyzing certification that should hold been created during the assorted stages. Of class. IT hearers would utilize other agencies of confirmation. such as enquiry and checklists. but the presence of proper SDLC certification illustrates the degree of application of the best patterns in SDLC. A reappraisal of a sample of the paperss will supply grounds that the entity is utilizing SDLC best patterns. which provides some confidence that systems are being developed expeditiously and efficaciously.