System Life Cycle

Question 1

Stages in System Life Cycle

Answer 1

Analysis
Design
Development and testing
Implementation / installation
Documentation
Evaluation and maintenance

Question 2

Analysis (SLC)

Answer 2

Understand the current situation

Define project specification, scope, budget etc.

Question 3

Design (SLC)

Answer 3

Design and Planning stage of the SLC

Question 4

Development and testing (SLC)

Answer 4

Development means “producing” the product according to the plan, often goes along with testing as they usually happens in parallel
Testing involves test plans and different testing methods

Question 5

Implementation (SLC)

Answer 5

Implementation or installation, once the product is developed and fully tested, this is the stage to install and transition to the new system

Question 6

4 types of implementation

Answer 6

Parallel
Direct
Phased
Pilot

*Note difference between phased and pilot
Phase is change to part of the new system while
Pilot is part of the company change to new system

Question 7

Types of Documentation

Answer 7

Technical - about how the system works, mainly for maintenance or future improvements, also installation guide
User - like user manual, troubleshooting guides

Question 8

Evaluation and maintenacne

Answer 8

Evaluate how the new system perform, compare to metrics that is defined in the analysis stage, may lead to restart the SLC (if new requirements arrived, not good enough etc.)
Maintenance take place after product delivered to customer

Question 9

Types of maintenance

Answer 9

Perfective - Improve the performance, usability etc. of the system. Also possible that new technology became available so employing it will improve

Adaptive - Adapt to changes that include internal procedure or external factors

Preventative - Prevent problems that may happen to a system. e.g. running anti-virus check is a preventative measure

Corrective - Fixing issues reported in the system

Question 10

Specification

Answer 10

In analysis stage, specification about the new system has to be defined.
Requirement Specification - Contract between developer and client, specify what the new system need to do and what the developer need to deliver

System Specification - List of software and hardware that is needed for the new system

Design Specification - Include graphics design (how the system looks like), Data structure (database design for example), System flow chart etc.

Question 11

Data Flow Diagram (DFD)

Answer 11

Shows how data flows throughout a system

Level 0 (Context level) diagram shows whole system and data flow between system and external entities

Level 1 DFD shows flow of data within part of a system

Question 12

System Flowchart

Answer 12

Shows process that take place within the system and the decisions that are made.

Question 13

Data Collection Form

Answer 13

Documents that are used to collect data without use of a computer (e.g. paper based application form)

Question 14

Types of testing

Answer 14

Alpha testing - Initial testing of software by a limited group of people (usually in-house)
Beta testing - sample of users (selected by developer) testing a pre-release version of software (often close to complete)

Black box testing - Testing input and output to a system without knowing how the system works

White box testing - Testing the system with the knowledge of how the system design which aims to cover all the paths within the system (often in house, with access to the source code of the program)

Question 15

Types of test data

Answer 15

Valid, invalid

Extreme (can be both valid or invalid, usually used to test the limit of the system, which most of the bugs are likely happened here)

Live Data - Data set that is actually used in the client’s system

e.g. When developing school report card system, student’s past scores maybe passed to the developer to test their system. Usage of live data may cause privacy issue, so sometimes the data might be masked (like removing names) before passing