The important components of software engineering are:

Software Development Life Cycle – it defines the various stages and activities associated with development of a software system.

Software Quality Assurance - this is the process of ensuring user satisfaction through the development of a quality product.

Software Project Management-it is the application of the principles project management to the process of software development.

Software Management - they are the methods and procedures to be followed for effective software maintenance and change control.

CASE (Computer Aided Software Engineering)- they are a set of automated tools that support the process of software development.

Software Development Life Cycle

A software system, right from the inception of an idea, to its implementation and delivery to a customer, undergoes through various development and evolution phases. Software is said have a life cycle composed of several phases. Each phase has well defined starting and ending points with clearly identifiable deliverables to the next phase. Each phase may have certain documents, which helps to keep track of all activities, procedures, inputs, outputs etc associated with that phase of the project.

Software development life cycle is a sequence of activities carried out by analyst, designers and users to develop and implement an information system. These activities are carried out in different stages.

Analyst studies the requirements of a customer or user and defines a problem domain. He identifies needs of an organization to determine how people, method and computer technology can best accomplish improvement of the business.

Designer designs the system in terms of the structure of the database, screens, forms and reports. He also determines the hardware and software requirements for the system to be developed.

User is the one who uses the system.

The entire Software Development Life Cycle can be broadly divided into 7 phases, which are:

Feasibility Study – In this phase we assess whether or not the project should be undertaken. This stage involves defining the problem and fixing up its boundaries. At the end of this stage, the design and development team becomes clear with project objectives, and their work purview.

Requirement Analysis - In this phase the user’s requirements are studied and analysed.The technical development team works with the customers and system end-users to identify the application domain, function,services,performance capabilities, hardware constraints relater to the system to be developed.

System Design - Is the phase where a new system is designed according to the needs of the user. It is the phase, which finds a solution for the given problem. This is the phase where the specifications of each and every components of the project are laid down.

Development – This is the phase where the system is actually developed. The whole of design phase is built and implemented in this phase.

Testing - This is the most crucial phase where the system is judged for all its worth. The system is tested under all kinds of adverse situations and environments to test its performents, relailability and robustness. During this phase entire project Functionality is tested with all of its units integrated. The system is tested with test data. During this phase, the developed system is reviewed against each and every customer requirement specification. The developed system should be able to address all of users needs and its functionality should resolve the clients problem completely.

Implementation - This is the process in which the developed system is handed over to the client. The old system is dispensed, new system is put into operation for use and all the personal are trained to manage and maintain a new system.

Software maintenance – This is the phase where in the development team maintain the system for the client. It includes adding enhancements ,improvements ,updates to newer versions and not just correction of errors and emergency fixes of a system breakdown.