Editing Systems development life cycle (section)

{{Short description|Systems engineering terms}}
{{Use American English|date = March 2019}}
[[File:SDLC-Maintenance-Highlighted.png|thumb|Model of the software development life cycle, highlighting the maintenance phase]]

In [[systems engineering]], [[information system]]s and [[software engineering]], the '''systems development life cycle''' ('''SDLC'''), also referred to as the '''application development life cycle''', is a process for planning, creating, testing, and deploying an [[information system]].<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20190828154643/https://www.cms.gov/Research-Statistics-Data-and-Systems/CMS-Information-Technology/XLC/Downloads/SelectingDevelopmentApproach.pdf SELECTING A DEVELOPMENT APPROACH]. Retrieved 17 July 2014.</ref> The SDLC concept applies to a range of hardware and software configurations, as a system can be composed of hardware only, software only, or a combination of both.<ref>{{cite journal |author1=Parag C. Pendharkara |author2=James A. Rodgerb |author3=Girish H. Subramanian | date=November 2008 |title=An empirical study of the Cobb–Douglas production function properties of software development effort |journal=Information and Software Technology |volume=50 |issue=12 | pages= 1181–1188 | doi=10.1016/j.infsof.2007.10.019}}</ref> There are usually six stages in this cycle: requirement analysis, design, development and testing, implementation, documentation, and evaluation.