The Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC)

Planning :

The next step towards developing an e-commerce website is creating a plan. To handle a complex problem, for example, building an e-commerce website, you should continue systematically through a series of steps.

One approach is the systems development life cycle. The SDLC is an approach for understanding the business objectives of any system and designing a fitting solution.

Embracing a life cycle approach doesn't ensure success, yet it is obviously better than having no plan by any means. 

The SDLC technique also helps in making documents that convey objectives, significant milestones, and the uses of resources to management. 

The system development life cycle contains following major phases 

• System analysis 

• System design

• Building the system 

• Testing the system 

• Implementation and maintenance.

System Analysis 

In this step of SDLC, we will identify what we want this e-commerce website to do for our firm. The key point is to let the business choices drive the technology, not the reverse. This will guarantee that your technology platform is lined up with your business. 

We will expect here that you have recognized a business system and picked a plan of action to accomplish your strategic objectives. 

One approach to start is to recognize the particular business objectives for your website, and then build a list of system functionalities and information requirements. Business objectives are nothing but the abilities you need your website to have. 

System functionalities are kinds of information systems capacities you will need in order to accomplish your business objectives. The information requirements for a system are the information components which the system must produce in order to accomplish the business objectives. 

This list of information requirement are required to be given to system programmers and developers in order to let them understand what as a manager you expect them to do.

Table explains some essential business objectives, system functionalities, and information requirements for a typical e-commerce website. As appeared in the table, there are ten fundamental business objectives that an e-commerce website should convey. 

These objectives should be converted into a description of system functionalities and eventually into a set of precise information requirements. To a large extent, the business objectives of an e-commerce website are not that different as those of a conventional retail store. 

The genuine difference lies in the system functionalities and information requirements. In an e-commerce website , the business objectives should be given completely in digital form.

System Design

Once the business objectives and system functionalities are identified and have prepared a list of information requirements, you can start to think on how these functionalities can be conveyed through website.

The system design can be divided into two parts: physical design and logical design. A logical design contains a data flow diagram which explains the flow of data in your e-commerce website, the processing function which should be performed and the database which will be used. 

It also contains details regarding security and emergency backup procedures which will be initiated, and the controls which will be used in system. 

The logical design is then translated in a physical design which contains physical components. 

For example, the physical design provides details about the type of server to be used, the software needs to be purchased, required telecommunication link size, system backup and security policy and so on. 

For a simple logical design of website which delivers catalog web pages in HTML in response to the HTTP requests received from client browser is shown in Fig. 2.2.1(a), while physical design corresponding to the logical design is shown in Fig. 2.2.1(b).

Every main process can be divided into lower level designs which are more accurate in recognizing exactly how the data flows and which are different equipment are involved.