Monthly Newsletter – Issue 33 May 2010

Dear Colleague,
Software deployment at most organizations is a means to an end and not an end in itself. Needless to say, organizations
deploy software to meet several business requirements in order to simplify business processes, smooth out business
problems or create more value for end customers. In a competitive market scenario, success or failure of an organization
often hinges on speed-to-market in deploying the new software, and/or keeping up with application modernization.
However, in many instances, due to lack of visibility, planning, foresight or simply, time, the development process itself takes
precedence and soon becomes all encompassing with inadequate regard for the ‘big’ picture. Given that any software is not
just about the creating and implementing a program but fulfilling a bigger business need, the approach to software
development needs to be more holistic and inclusive which would integrate and merge the various needs of different
stakeholders. Often there is a tendency to restrict the purview of ALM by associating it strongly with software development
while the reality, is that ALM encompasses a much wider scope of work. It is imperative to be cognizant of the fact that only
fulfilling certain metrics during the process of development is neither sufficient nor prudent.
Organizations now want to view software development and deployment as a managed business process. Here is where
Application Lifecycle Management or ALM plays a vital role.
The role of the ‘IT department’ is to understand the overall business strategy, identify projects and prioritize them, allocate the
ideal resources, control and monitor the progress and at the same time ensure delivery is smooth and timely. ALM solutions
are required to enable IT to make these strategic and critical decisions that are decisive for meeting speed-to market
objectives. These decisions have far reaching effects impacting technology, resource allocation, design of application
architectures and software release strategies. A process needs to be put in place to govern and manage change in order to
make such change least disruptive. Organizations now want to view software development and deployment as a managed
business process. Here is where Application Lifecycle Management or ALM plays a vital role.

The benefits of a successful ALM are many: greater accountability, better governance, higher visibility, increased efficiency,
reduced errors, reduced costs, improved collaboration etc. In a dynamic world, customer requirements keep evolving and
loyalties are weak. To stay ahead in the game, and prevent erosion of their customer base, businesses must be agile and
flexible. ALM allows systems to quickly adjust to such changes. This is an area of technology usage which is truly vertical
neutral. Whichever vertical we look at, software development needs to be in sync with the governing principles of business
management. The need of the hour is a winning combination of integration and management of the application lifecycle which
will allow the organization to design, create, and deploy solutions that will enable them to achieve the preferred results and
manage them through the lifecycle.

We spoke with Mr. B.K. Birla of asklaila, to understand the awareness and maturity levels of ALM. He shares his views on the
acceptance of ALM and the benefits thereof that asklaila has experienced after adopting ALM tools.

Tech Watch welcomes readers to write in their feedback on how a particular technology has led to improvements in customer
satisfaction, enhanced customer loyalty or enabled operational efficiency.

Happy reading
Warm regards,

Anand Sankaran
Senior Vice President and Business Head, Wipro, India, Middle East and Africa. 
Application Lifecycle
Management
Business and technology executives,
including CXOs, are being asked to do
more with less. Maintenance of legacy
systems and existing technology
support, uses large amounts of an
organization’s software budget.
Because of this, little is left of budgets
to develop new, standards-based,
adaptive applications that meet core
needs of businesses. Managing
complexity, aligning IT with the
business, and enabling agility are top
priorities for CXOs who are constantly
under pressure to do more for the
business with fixed or diminishing
budgets.
To measure the real value of IT and
ensure it helps effectively run an
organization, IT departments must get
together with the other departments
and the software initiatives that they
undertake, to ensure measurable
business benefits are delivered. To
achieve this, an application life-cycle
management solution is required to
help organizations in tracking,
balancing, and communicating the
systems that are being created to
efficiently run the business. Application
Life-cycle Management (ALM) provides
such a solution by addressing the
overall configuration and harmonization
of business goals and IT investment
priorities. ALM relies on automation,
integration, and a synchronized
approach to optimize the software
development process.
Application development in large
enterprise environments is more
challenging than ever before with the
new opportunities emerging
everywhere. Today, leading companies
around the world are addressing the
renaissance of application development
by effectively deploying new
technologies and practices to realize
improved efficiencies and deliver
greater value.
What is ALM?
An application lifecycle management is
a software solution which is a very
powerful technology tool which helps
companies dramatically improve all
facets of software design,
development, deployment, and ongoing
administration. ALM software systems
offer all the features and capabilities
which organizations need to facilitate
the effective planning, execution, and
tracking of all development-related
activities during the entire lifecycle.
Application Lifecycle development is
one of the most strategic activities in IT.
ALM explains methods for managing
the software development and it also
helps in IT initiatives by automating the
process from end to end, and
assimilating the information from the
different steps. Integration of the
processes provides stability and
accuracy and also introduces
opportunities for automation.
Figure 1: Application Lifecycle
Management
ALM enables improvement of the
software delivery process. ALM
platforms especially address the
challenge of consistency and
predictability of software delivery. This
challenge is addressed by providing
integration and automation for each of
the major roles that forms a part of the
software delivery process.
Benefits of ALM
ALM enables IT managers to balance
and prioritize their software project
portfolios. It also helps in attaining
increased levels of control over their
teams and enhanced visibility into
project execution. With Application
Lifecycle Management, executives can
also be assured that the software
development process is much more
auditable, which means better
corporate governance and helps the
enterprises to demonstrate compliance
with various regulations.
Some of the specific advantages that
can be achieved through the utilization
of an application lifecycle management
software package are:
Increased efficiency
Engineering, development, and quality
assurance teams are much more
prolific with ALM software, and output
delivery is also quicker. This increase
in efficiency is achieved through the
creation and enforcement of standards
and best practices across all related
processes.
Improved collaboration
Software development typically
requires involvement from distinct
groups with different skills, as well as
groups with conflicting goals and
priorities. ALM software brings together
the different teams which participate in
the software development process, by
facilitating instant communication and
information-sharing among all key
stakeholders. So, all the team
members have complete and timely
insight into plans, requirements,
changes, task status and other
imperative project information at all
times.
Accelerated Time-to-Market
ALM software helps in automating,
streamlining and simplifying the project
management, resource planning,
integration, and other critical
development functions. Therefore,
software can be designed, delivered,
and deployed in a quicker fashion and
the customers or internal users can get
up and running as fast as possible.
Enhanced organizational agility
ALM software systems offer the agility
and flexibility required to instantly
respond to varying customer
requirements as they occur. It also
allows companies to quickly and
efficiently design and build new
software applications, or update
existing ones.
Increased product quality
ALM software provides the
mechanisms required to plainly define
all requirements and specifications, and
implement and enforce quality
assurance guidelines. As a result,
companies can ensure that the
software they design and develop
successfully, satisfies all end user
needs, and is built in line with the
highest quality standards.
Minimized maintenance
An ALM software package fully
synchronizes the application and its
design; so the time, effort, and costs
related with ongoing administration are
kept to an absolute minimum.
Improved resource utilization
With an ALM software system in place,
organizations can maximize their
investment in employees, technologies,
and other resources. ALM software
also makes sure that resource skills or
capabilities are exactly matched to the
requirements for each particular task,
activity, or phase in the development
lifecycle. This, in turn, helps eradicate
waste, enhance efficiency, and reduce
development-related costs.
The net result of these benefits is
improved synchronization between IT
and enterprise to deliver improved
business value and an additional
competitive advantage to the
organizations.
Core pillars of ALM
Without the integration of guidelines for
ALM, it can be a labor-intensive and
error-prone technology. These
guidelines, or pillars if you like, take
ALM to the next level by increasing the
efficiency of the software. There is a
direct correlation between the power of
the three ALM pillars to the power of
their development disciplines. The
three core pillars of ALM are:
• Lifecycle traceability: This is 
conventionally a manual process,
where the effort differs with the number
and size of projects. Internal and
external compliance requirements, as
well as the ever-growing need to
coordinate with all software
development participants, make
traceability more vital to organization
success.
• Automation of high-level processes:
Development organizations commonly
use paper-based approval processes to
control handovers between functional
areas. ALM solutions improve
efficiency by automating these
handovers and by providing central
storage for all associated
documentation.
• Increase visibility through analytics
and metrics: Most managers have
limited visibility into the progress of
development projects. They garner this 
visibility from subjective testimonials
rather than objective data. Most of the
reporting procedures are manual and
are based on status meetings, progress
reports and demonstrations. The ALM
reporting functions gain from
assimilation and automation to provide
real-time status information and deep
analysis of all activities.
Providing traceability, automation, and
increasing visibility has traditionally
been little tough to achieve, mainly due
to disparate tools that do not integrate
well together. ALM has been a
convergence point for makers of 
visualization tools, modeling tools,
compilers, integrated development
environments, source code
supervisors, project management
systems, configuration management
systems, and problem tracking
systems.
Features of ALM:
The process of software development
is made up of an array of complex and
interdependent tasks and procedures
that must be well coordinated and
seamlessly carried out in order to
ensure that projects are completed on
time and within budget. ALM software
packages provide full support for all
related activities, including project 
management requirements, planning
and definition, creation of development
task workflows, and quality assurance
planning and testing. Additionally, most
ALM software solutions offer the
following features:
Requirements management: This
feature enables the definition, control,
and communication of the targets 
which are driving the software
development project, over and above 
any regulations that will impact the
development process.
Software design: Software design 
ensures that the end product complies
with all technical specifications and
requirements, and also successfully
addresses all end user needs.  Increased supervision is required which
Figure 2: Features of ALM
Project management: Project
management simplifies the scheduling,
allocation, and tracking of both
employees and technology. Project
management helps in assigning the
tasks, specifying the staff members,
fixing the deadlines, creating of
interdependencies and the updating
status of each activity at all times.
 Testing: ALM clearly outlines all quality
assurance procedures, and allows for
instant detection and correction of bugs
and other problems before the software
is sold or implemented.
Change management: It helps
executives to keep track on projects
when specifications change during the
course of the development cycle.
 Monitoring and reporting: ALM enables
project leaders and other supervisors to
set and measure key performance
indicators, so they can stay focused on
the status of projects – as well as each
individual task – in real-time.
Challenges of Application Lifecycle
Management
Application development is a complex
task that, if not performed predictably,
has many inherent challenges. These
challenges include:
The development process across
projects can be incompetent and
applications can be with limited
reusable components and services,
which increases costs.
 Geographically dispersed teams can
develop complexities of managing
workflow across development groups.
Limited management and visibility into
project status.
Managing software defects and the
application lifecycle process can be
difficult to detect.
The chances of versioning issues
which arises from referencing common
components are greater.
makes a formal build and deploy
process, essential.
Efficient application lifecycle
management can help alleviate the
impact of these challenges. It can help
in controlling costs associated with
software errors, and improving
development project success rates.
Conclusion
Application Lifecycle Management is
much more than just writing the
software code. The organizations can
excel in development and operations
but the project will not provide much
value if it does not target the right
problems. Similarly, a project that
targets the right problems but ignores
the operational issues will not provide
business value. Organizations should
take a broader perspective of ALM to
avoid such problems.
Achieving all the aspects of ALM is not
that easy, especially when current ALM
tools are not as well integrated as they
could be. Organizations need to take a
holistic view of ALM to improve the
critical business process. The core
business and its IT department must
come together and the collective efforts
must provide business benefits which
can be measured.
ALM can help organizations fulfill their
promise to deliver the right products
with the right SLAs. ALM enables the IT
department to closely align with the
requirements of the business and
enables the organizations to make
smart and strategic decision by using
IT. Application Lifecycle Management
can help in driving organizations
forward by ensuring that the business
and IT function have a combined
process to set targets, metrics, and
priorities.
Vertical vista : IT/ITES
The Indian IT/ITeS sector has played a
significant role in showcasing India’s
superiority as an outsourcing
destination and also improving the
overall economic health of the country.
The IT/ITeS sector is spreading its
wings beyond the metros and entering
into tier-2 and 3 cities of the country.
India is considered a leader in software
development and a preferred
destination for IT-enabled services.
IT organizations want to have a higher
degree of productivity, process and
compliance. In order to achieve this,
they are shifting away from desktop
version control, and starting to
implement enterprise software change
management systems which can scale
across their entire organization, span
their various computing platforms and
offer enterprise-level capabilities. IT
organizations are now turning to wider
scope and more robust Application
Lifecycle Management (ALM) solutions
to support the process of software
development and deployment.
Figure 1: Application Lifecycle
Development
Application Lifecycle Development
(ALM) can help IT organizations by
improving the way they develop
software. These IT organizations can
leverage some core solution areas and
processes and at the same time they
can provide more holistic insight of
what is going on inside of the
application lifecycle.
IT organizations now want to convert
software development and deployment
into a managed business process and
Application Lifecycle Management is
one such technology which helps
organizations in doing the same. ALM
is not just about developers, but is
actually about all the roles that come
together to make sure that software
meets business needs. These needs
should be met for everyone in the
organization right from business
analysts, to the architect, to the
developer, to the project manager, the
tester.
ALM is one of the most strategic
activities in IT, whether the business
goal is to increase customer
satisfaction, streamline operations, or
venture into a new market, the
applications that strengthen business
initiatives and provide differentiation
are vital to success. ALM can deliver
business-critical applications can help
IT organizations in maintaining a
competitive edge in the marketplace
and driving top-line growth.
Case study
New tools help IT firm visualize,
improve, and validate architecture in
large projects
A global IT consulting firm having
developers, architects, and testers
often working in different locations, had
issues collaborating on large customer
software projects. They needed better
application lifecycle management tools
in order to ensure on-time
implementations without glitches. In
2009, the firm decided to become an
early adopter of Microsoft Visual Studio
2010 Ultimate and Microsoft Visual
Studio Team Foundation Server 2010.
By using the solution’s integrated tools,
employees can easily visualize the
software’s structure as it develops and
validate it against the desired state.
Team members can collaborate more
easily, and developers and architects
spend six fewer hours a week checking
that software adheres to the plan. The
company has also increased customer
confidence and expects to lower
software maintenance costs.
Situation
The company specializes in application
and infrastructure management and
software testing with its business
spaning more than 200 locations in 15
countries.
The company operates a growing,
managed delivery team that includes
software designers and architects
based in the Netherlands, and
developers and testers located in India.
This team is increasingly responsible
for application development and
management projects for government
agencies and other high-profile
European customers. These projects
include developing new applications
with no existing code base and also
updating and managing existing code
bases that sometimes have poor
structures and implementations.
A key success factor in its project work,
is to architect new software to support
the desired customer functionality,
minimize defects, and ensure
robustness and maintainability.
However, this is only successful if the
actual implementations adhere to the
architecture, which is difficult and time-
consuming to manage with a large
geographically dispersed team.
The company found that increasingly it
was executing projects starting with
developers in India and managed by
designers and architects in the
Netherlands. So, for example, the
process of checking applications to
ensure that the architecture is correct
was very time-consuming. It involved
travel, many conference calls, and a lot
of e-mail messages and instant
messages back and forth. As a result,
they were not as productive as they
would like to be.
The company’s team members also
lacked effective tools to aid in the
application building and management
processes. Although the company had
been using Microsoft Visual Studio
Team System 2008 as its primary
development environment for the past
several years, developers needed
better design and modeling tools.
Reviewing a complex solution without
proper documentation can be a
challenge. Visual Studio 2008 code
metrics helped a lot, but they still
struggled to find architecture
implementation glitches’.
During a recent software maintenance
project, the company’s software
architects had difficulty in updating the
application code. It was hard to
understand the application structure
when they wanted to change some of
the components. It was a very large
project with a lot of code and many
dependencies, and they did not have
the documentation they needed.
These challenges were particularly
urgent because the company wanted to
improve its chances of winning and
keeping new business in an
increasingly competitive marketplace.
The company hence began to consider
investing in a new development
environment that would help address
these issues.
Solution
In early 2009, the firm decided to
become an early adopter of the
Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate
development system and Microsoft
Visual Studio Team Foundation Server
2010. The company wanted to take
advantage of new architectural, testing,
and tracking tools.
One of these tools is Architecture
Explorer, which graphically displays
software projects. It helps the
company’s developers and architects
visualize solution dependencies and
artifacts, such as classes, interfaces,
and namespaces. Using Architecture
Explorer in Visual Studio 2010
Ultimate, the company’s employees
can select project artifacts, display
graphs with dependencies, and easily
move in and out of those dependencies.
Another important tool is the Layer
Diagram, which gives developers the
ability to visually design applications and
run checks to validate the architecture.
Developers can also use the tool to view
and model application dependencies. In
addition, the solution supports UML 2.0
diagrams, which the company’s
developers use to get a complete view of
all attributes of an application.
 
 
 
 
 
 
Figure 2: Visual Studio 2010
Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate also
includes testing tools that can be used
by architects and developers as well as
testers. They were eager to become an
early adopter of Visual Studio 2010
because it has the architectural and
testing features they needed.
The company also implemented Visual
Studio Team Foundation Server 2010, a
collaboration environment that includes
new work item tracking, reporting, and
source code management features,
which help connect the organization’s
geographical dispersed development \
employees.
Benefits
With the new tools in Visual Studio
2010, the company’s employees have
better visibility into software
implementations and collaborate more
easily. Its developers and architects
spend six fewer hours each week on
implementation checks. The company
has also been able to increase customer
confidence. Additionally, the company
expects to lower software maintenance
costs.
Improves Project Visibility
By using Visual Studio 2010, the
company’s developers, architects, and
now have a much better ability to view
specific information about software
implementations and maintenance
projects. With the design and modeling
tools in Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate,
the managed delivery team has better
visibility and control over system
implementations.
The developers can also identify
implementation errors, much more
efficiently. For instance, the company
recently developed a large software
solution for a government research
organization that wanted assurance
that the solution would be implemented
as specified. The solution was so
complex that the customer actually
requested an external source code
audit from a software analysis
company. Using Architecture Explorer
and UML diagrams, they found
multiple defects in the solution’s
architecture that the auditors did not
catch. They showed the customer
almost in real time what the
architecture looked like and what the
dependencies were.
Connects Disparate Workers
With the work item tracking, reporting,
and source code management
features in Visual Studio Team
Foundation Server 2010, team
members can collaborate in the same
development environment, on all
phases of a project’s design and
implementation. Visual Studio Team
Foundation Server 2010 closely
connects the company’s architects,
developers, and testers during the
entire application lifecycle
management process. This is of great
use to as they can now execute the
projects quickly and efficiently. Using
the integrated architectural and testing
tools in Visual Studio 2010, software
architects at the company now have
access to architectural tools in the
same environment that developers and
testers work in. A developer can view
a diagram and immediately jump to the
work item connected to that diagram,
while also creating test cases for that
work item. It is a very seamless process,
and that is something they lacked
previously.
Saves Developers and Architects Up to
Six Hours a Week
Because the solution can automatically
perform checks to validate an
application’s architecture, the devel-
opment team now spends less time
checking software implementation for
customers. Previously, developers and
architects spent up to six hours a week
checking implementations and helping
customers understand the architecture.
The architecture analysis tools in Visual
Studio 2010. Ultimate automate those
processes, which helps eliminate that
implementation check time. As a result,
the organization’s managed delivery
team will spend less time on testing and
will be able to complete customer
projects more quickly than before.
Increases Customer Confidence
Because the new solution provides
better insight into the details of
application architecture, the company
customers are more confident about their
applications. It is also easier for the firm
to win new business because it can now
use complete architectural diagrams to
demonstrate the quality of its
applications to customers. Salespeople
and managers in particular are excited
about this, because they now have a way
to clearly show new and existing
customers the quality of their work.
Lowers Costs
The new solution will also help the
company reduce some of the mainte-
nance costs related to certain customer
projects. With Visual Studio 2010, they
can get much better analysis into every
aspect of a software main –tenance
project. They can more easily find
information on possible problem so they
can implement more solid solutions that
will make maintenance easier and less
costly.
Vertical Vista – BFSI
Introduction
The BFSI sector is one of the oldest
pillars of the Indian economy – at the
epicenter of all activities related to
commerce and economy. The banking
sector, in particular, has shown
significant growth over the years.
Modern banking is highly technology-
driven. The same can be said about all
other sub-sectors of BFSI, viz. financial
services and insurance. BFSI sector,
hence, has always been at the forefront
of technology adoption resulting in
process improvement, reduction in
processing time, lowering customer
waiting time and finally improving
customer service.
Role of IT/Software in BFSI
IT has become integral to the BFSI
sector. Let’s take one sub sector as an
example – adoption of the Core
Banking System helps a bank in overall
coordination across all branches, thus
achieving uniformity in operations. At a
broad level, all aspects of IT –
hardware, software, security, storage,
services, etc. are part of the IT
infrastructure of organizations in the
BFSI sector.
Need for Application Lifecycle
Management (ALM) in BFSI sector
ALM is the process of business
management working in tandem with
software engineering to achieve
success in overall project management.
In the broadest terms, project
management implies the overall
achievement of an objective starting
from scratch. For a bank, this includes
optimizing processes to streamline
efforts, development of new automation
tools to accelerate application
development, etc. A successful
integration and management of the
application lifecycle will enable the
bank develop software solutions that
can help it achieve desired outcomes
on time, on budget, and within scope.
Case Study
Large investment banking firm
achieves agility and compliance
using CollabNet
A large investment banking firm with 35
multi-country locations was required by
its parent company to reach CMMI
Maturity Level 3. When this
requirement was laid down, IT teams
used various Agile processes for
software development, but did not use
a single process consistently across
the organization.
The IT department set out to build a
process that would support the existing
and varied Agile practices, achieve
CMMI Level 3 compliance and
introduce a more standardized
approach to software development
across the organization. But this was
no easy task.
Furthermore, banking is a highly
controlled environment, and banks
must maintain rigorous controls on
software development and deployment
to constrain operational risk and ensure
compliance with Sarbanes-Oxley and
Basel II requirements. IT must be very
flexible to make rapid technical
changes, because software defects can
have a high and immediate financial
impact.
Achieving compliance in an agile
development environment
The quest for financial rigor and
corporate compliance has driven many
companies to adopt Capability Maturity
Model® Integration (CMMI) for software
development. Developed by Carnegie
Mellon University, CMMI defines a
clear set of process goals, metrics and
best practices for five ascending levels
of process “maturity” and guides
organizations on how to foster
accountability and results. The focus of
CMMI is on planning, documentation,
audit and traceability.
A drawback of CMMI is that its
structured approach to repeatable
processes, and requirements for
documentary evidence that processes
are being followed, make many
developers think it only supports a
Waterfall type development lifecycle. In
some reported project disasters, 1-2
years passed as teams worked through
the lifecycle, only to find out the entire
project had to be scrapped in the end
because the ultimate development
work did not align with requirements
that had evolved throughout the project
lifecycle.
Agile is an approach that attempts to
speed and streamline software
development and make the phases of
development flexible enough to handle
changing requirements. It supports
collaboration and short iterations to
enable developers make adjustments
and update plans, midstream.
According to the Agile Manifesto2, core
values of an Agile environment include:
 Individuals and interactions over
processes and tools
 Working software over comprehensive
documentation
 Customer collaboration over contract
negotiation
 Responding to change over following a
plan
Agile meets many of the requirements
of today’s fast-paced development
environments, and has proven
successful in organizations that need to
respond quickly to market demands.
Unfortunately, Agile makes CMMI
compliance difficult. Without thorough
documentation, it’s nearly impossible to
meet maturity Level 3 stipulations, e.g.
defining common processes,
incorporating specific practices and
demonstrating that processes are
consistently followed.
Facing tremendous pressure to deliver
solutions quickly and meet changing
priorities, investment banking
institutions are reluctant to change
processes and adopt new tools.
However, for those who are using Agile
processes for software development,
new requirements for meeting CMMI
compliance necessitates standardized
processes and documentation. The
challenge for banks is to deploy a
process that supports key parts of
Agile, produce documentary evidence
that the process is consistently in use,
and all the while, shelter IT from
unnecessary bureaucracy that impedes
genuine progress.
CMMI and agile: Can they Co-Exist?
Among the many improvements to the
development lifecycle, CMMI best
practices enable organizations to link
management and engineering activities
to business objectives, expand visibility
into the product lifecycle, and
implement robust high-maturity
practices that better comply with
relevant ISO standards. However,
developers prefer the Agile approach,
because it enables shorter, more
flexible iterations during development
for rapid prototyping and faster
development cycles.
Agile was being used inconsistently
across the banking firm’s IT
organization, but the need for
standardization prompted IT
management to investigate existing
tools that could accommodate the new
requirements while still allowing
developers to work within existing Agile
environments. The firm employed Agile
and CMMI consultants to look for a
viable solution. Widespread
consultations and workshops were held
that involved team members across the
organization. An initial process was
developed that captured the core
elements of Agile and fitted in with
general working practices of the firm;
however, it relied largely on the
completion of template word
documents and excel spreadsheets
that were unintuitive and difficult to use.
The firm had purchased the CollabNet
Application Lifecycle Management (ALM)
platform three years prior, but was only
using a portion of the platform for source
control. CollabNet Subversion® is an
enterprise-ready distribution of
Subversion that includes certified
binaries, platform-specific installers and
certified plug-ins for other tools.
CollabNet Subversion is just one part of
CollabNet’s ALM platform. Teams across
the organization still used a large variety
of tools for storing requirements, and
numerous disparate processes varied in
quality. A need for better consistency
was apparent. Hence, the IT
management began to investigate what
else CollabNet could offer.
CollabNet: From source control tool
to agent of change
Fortunately, the team realized that the
same CollabNet ALM platform they had
already been using to manage their
Subversion source code repositories,
also provided the extended functionality
needed to comply with CMMI. The IT
director tried the CollabNet solution with
his team, which was responsible for
developing front office trading software.
The team began using Subversion for
source control, Project Tracker for
requirements management and bug
tracking, and other components of
CollabNet’s ALM platform, such as
discussion forums and collaboration
tools. The ALM platform allowed them to
integrate, govern, and manage the
phases of application development,
including planning, definition, design,
development, testing, deployment and
administration.
Once the CollabNet solution proved
successful in the initial pilots, plans were
made to roll out the solution across the
organization as a standard process.
Dissolving Geographic boundaries
CollabNet offers the industry’s only open
and integrated ALM platform built
specifically for distributed teams,
empowering teams to manage all phases
of the software development lifecycle,
from requirements through release.
The platform is technology, tool and
process independent and designed to
enable a culture of collaboration
among teams. CollabNet is accessible
through all popular desktop tools, and
is available through a Software-as-a-
Service (SaaS) model or on-premise
installation.
CollabNet has numerous features
conducive to an efficient, collaborative
development environment. For
example, CollabNet provides the ability
to link requirements captured in Project
Tracker to code changes as well as
communication tools to alert and or
gain approval from other team
members, which allows greater control
over what changes are actually
released into production. Integration of
source control and requirements
capture also allows a high degree of
traceability for Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX)
compliance.
CollabNet’s reporting capabilities can
be used for business prioritization and
status reports.
For the investment bank, one of the
most useful features of CollabNet is
the “artifact” definition in Project
Tracker. Bug, requirement and risk
artifacts can be created with the
required attributes for the software
development environment. Artifacts in
CollabNet are the data types used to
model key constituents of a process
(see figure below). For example, a list
of high-level business requirements is
used for planning and prioritization.
CollabNet enables the user to perform
a Project Tracker query that displays
all artifacts in progress or due to be
prioritized, where the type is equal to
the high level requirement. Parent-
child relationships between artifacts
enable users to better manage high-
level requirements and sub-
requirements.
Once the basic data structures,
relationships, reports and layout of a
project are defined, an ALM template
can be created and used for other
projects.
 
 
 
 
Single platform allows integrated
process from requirement capture to
release
The template contains the project
structure and content, artifact types with
embedded workflow, and Project Tracker
queries.
CollabNet saves resources, reduces
risk
According to the firm’s IT director, the
CollabNet Agile template in use has
been approved by CMMI consultants as
meeting requirements for CMMI Level 3.
The template and process were rolled
out to 72 teams in London and Frankfurt
in just six months. “Our whole
development community now speaks a
common language of high level
requirements, RAID (risks, assumptions,
issues and dependencies), stories and
tasks, and they are using a common
platform and process,” he said.
CollabNet ALM simplifies the process of
demonstrating consistent implementation
of standardized processes to satisfy
CMMI requirements. Actions are
automatically logged into the system,
eliminating the need for users to fill out
forms or document changes to prove
CMMI compliance.
Possibly the most important benefit of
the CollabNet ALM solution is that it
enables teams throughout the
organization to collaborate efficiently on
development projects. The solution
provides an efficient way to track roles
and levels of access and how changes to
requirements and code are made
throughout the development lifecycle.
Centralizing source control, performance
management and ALM functionality and
making it accessible from a single, user-
friendly interface,saves time and
overhead.

Interview
Mr. BK Birla is CTO of a local search
engine-Asklaila, with over 15 years of
experience in the software industry. He
is a seasoned, hands-on manager with
experience of building teams and
delivering high quality products to
enterprises and internet audience in
record times. He has worked with
companies like Amazon, Arcot and
global IT companies.
AMI-partners engaged in conversation
with Mr. Birla to know about the
benefits Asklaila has achieved after
adopting application lifecycle
management and the challenges
organizations are facing in adopting
this technology.
1. What are some of the key
benefits Asklaila has achieved after
adopting Application Lifecycle
Management? How has it translated
into real benefits for your
customers?
In today’s age, users on internet are
demanding and spoilt for choice. It is
important to build predictability into
software processes so that there are no
surprises for end customers, and
businesses are able to minimize user
attrition to other products. For an
internet product company like Asklaila,
it is essential that users have a
satisfactory experience but we also
need to ensure that systems are
flexible enough to respond to ever
changing market requirements. Asklaila
uses a variety of open source tools to
achieve complete Application Lifecycle
Management. Our customers are also
benefitting from the technology and
they get a great experience while using
our website.
For more information / feedback, please write to reachus@wipro.com
For customer escalations / complaints, please write to customer.advocacy@wipro.com
This publication is produced by Wipro Infotech and is for private circulation to its customers. The research has
been undertaken and executed by Access Markets International (AMI) Partners, Inc. for Wipro Infotech. While all
care has been taken ensure accuracy of information contained in this publication, neither Wipro Infotech nor
Access Markets International (AMI) Partners, Inc. accept any responsibility for any loss or damage to any person
resulting from reliance on it.
2. Where does the technology of
Application Lifecycle Management
stand in terms of awareness,
maturity, adoption and integration
into other solutions? What will be
some of the innovations in the near
future?
The service industry has brought a lot
of process maturity into the industry as
it needs a greater level of predictability
Product companies have a lesser level
of maturity in this space but emergence
of many open source tools is helping in
faster adoption.
In future, integrated Application
Lifecycle Management products are
bound to emerge which will operate in
a hosted model so that the adoption
hurdles can be reduced and will also
bring down the overall cost using cloud
computing.
3. What are some of the main
challenges organizations can face
while adopting ALM? What best
practices do you recommend? What
should an enterprise do to create an
effective strategy to address the
challenges?
Enterprises should look at the existing
processes from an end customer
perspective. There is no single solution
which fits everyone. The first thing is to
get a buy in from senior management
as Application Lifecycle Management
needs an integrated approach from all
departments in an organization. The
second step is to identify the right tools.
We need to make sure that the tools
provide you practical ease, otherwise
usage will always be an issue. Overall,
it requires an alignment of various
departments towards common
business objectives. Implementing a
complete application lifecycle is about
improving the effect of IT initiatives on
the business.
4. Which are some of the
verticals and industry segments that
are seriously considering or using
Application Lifecycle Management
exclusively? What are the future
prospect verticals?
ALM as a technology is becoming more
and more important for business
services companies where mapping of
business requirements to a solution
and providing transparency across
different stakeholders is an important
aspect. Companies who are involved in
distributed development also need to
ensure the usage of ALM technology to
ensure quality and predictability.
In future ALM will see greater adoption
of ALM technologies in the product and
internet domains also, as products of
tomorrow are bound to have more
complexity.
5. What do you envision as the
future of ALM in India? Do you
foresee any challenges that need to
be overcome for the Indian market to
really take off?
Application Lifecycle Management will
be an important technology to ensure
that Indian companies are able to
deliver more and more complicated
software. Effective pricing is a key
aspect to ensure greater adoption in
the Indian market which will emerge as
cloud computing and Application
Lifecycle Management converge.
To overcome the challenges,
organizations should truly enable
business change. IT managers in
organizations should examine their
approach for planning, developing and
deploying. IT managers should also
bring on the next generation of
applications and at the same time align
IT efforts with the changing business
needs.