This brief examines how application virtualization can compress the development and test cycle, accelerating time-to-market, while reducing risk and complexity. This brief highlights the impact of centralized command and control of application deployment and execution.
Streamline the Development and Test CycleCentralized Command and Control of Enterprise Applications
The ChallengeEffective management of development and testing environments mitigates risk,reduces the cost of implementation into production and accelerates the benefitsof the new or upgraded system. Streamlining the application lifecycle allows yourcompany to realize the return on investment (ROI) much more quickly. Inheterogeneous environments, managing the application lifecycle becomes vital,as new applications and upgrades must be developed, tested and implemented inan integrated way to support enterprise IT.
Fraught with risk, development and testing cycles are often pressured by tightdeadlines, limited budgets and competing demands for IT staff time andresources. Reducing the risks inherent in deploying new applications and codechanges can compress implementation time and lessen complexity, implicitlyimproving your ability to meet deadlines and apply fewer resources toimplementation projects.
A more efficient lifecycle puts applications in front of your end-users faster and ata lower cost, accelerating ROI. To attain this streamlined lifecycle, you cancompress the time needed to implement new applications by managing riskprudently and reducing the complexity of the environments through which theapplication passes during the lifecycle.
Risks in the Application Lifecycle Most businesses take a phased approach to new application implementation -both for packaged solutions and those developed in-house. The applicationlifecycle refers typically to development, testing, and staging before deploying anapplication to end-users in a production environment. These four - orsometimes more - phases each require a discrete technology environment tosupport the specific activities. As these environments constantly fluctuate,additional equipment and licenses must be provisioned, and the rapid andfrequent changes, especially in development and test environments, can straintechnology and human resources.
The development and testing environments change most frequently anddrastically. Modern software development methodologies engender iterativedevelopment and testing practices. Even for packaged applications, integrationdevelopment and application customization require constant rollbacks, trial anderror bug fixes or parameterization, and the necessary exploration of new waysto satisfy strict end-user requirements.
Staging environments, also know as pre-production, tend to mirror production,allowing the Quality Assurance (QA) team to gauge the effectiveness of newapplications and configurations in every conceivable situation. Unlike theproduction environment, though, test servers experience many more changes, aspotential problems are identified and addressed. Of necessity, administrators areforced to add and remove applications frequently and change applicationconfigurations, with the goal of not disrupting other tests.
Ideally, the production environment remains undisturbed, with new applicationsadded carefully and in accordance with strict change management procedures.The most sensitive stage of the application lifecycle - moving code intoproduction - has the most salient risk, as any misstep can impede the businessand even be noticed by customer. Streamline the Development and Test Cycle
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The goal is to improve efficiency within each stage and make movement from onelifecycle stage to the next more predictable. You can attain this efficiency throughcentralized command and control of application deployment and execution.Applications can reach end-users more quickly and economically, reducing overalltime-to-market while having been tested thoroughly to ensure that businessrequirements are satisfied. TMDataSynapse FabricServerDataSynapse FabricServer centralizes the command and control of applicationdeployment and execution by virtualizing applications and guaranteeing thatcapacity is available on demand.
In a mixed-architecture environment, FabricServer reduces the systemadministration support needed at each stage of the application lifecycle andfacilitates the movement of code among environments. Managed through acentral, web-ba... [download for more]