Micro FocusApplication Lifecycle Management is a set of software tools developed and marketed by Micro Focus for application development and testing. It includes tools for requirements management, test planning and functional testing, performance testing, developer management, and defect management. ALM is designed to support key stakeholders responsible for delivering applications as they progress through their lifecycle. It is a combination of a common platform, several key applications and a dashboard targeted at managing the core lifecycle of applications, from design through readiness for delivery to operations. All of these core lifecycle activities are connected together from a workflow perspective with a common management console, layer of project tracking and planning and built on a common software foundation containing a consistent repository and open integration architecture with a supported SDK. ALM is intended to provide Information Technology departments with a centralized application management platform for managing and automating within and across application teams and throughout the complete process of developing an application, within a single workflow. Micro Focus offers a number of consulting services to support ALM.
ALM provides project planning and tracking so application development solutions teams can define, track, measure, and report on project milestones and key performance indicators.
Real-time traceability of requirements and defects.
Lab management automation
The Lab Management capability allows testing teams to provision and deploy a test lab themselves in a hybrid delivery environment through integration of ALM with Continuous Delivery Automation.
Asset sharing and re-use
ALM supports sharable asset libraries that can be reused across projects while maintaining traceability. Specific changes can be applied to shared assets for each project while maintaining library integrity, and projects can re-synch with the library as needed. Cross-project defect collaboration is also supported.
Cross-project reporting
ALM provides cross-project reporting and pre-configured business views for reports such as aggregated project status metrics, application quality metrics, requirements coverage, and defect trends for both an enterprise release and individual projects.
Enterprise Collaboration
HP Enterprise Collaboration uses social media for application development teams to communicate without leaving the ALM environment. Users can import relevant objects for participants to review and comment on.
Micro Focus Performance Center software is an enterprise-class performance testing platform and framework. The solution is used by IT departments to standardize, centralize and conduct performance testing, as well as reuse previous test cases. Performance Center finds software code flaws across the lifecycle of applications. Built on LoadRunner software, Performance Center supports developer testing and integrates with ALM.
Quality assurance
ALM includes quality assurance features for risk-based test planning and management, version control, baselining, quality release and cycle management, test scheduling and execution, integrated manual testing and defect management. Micro Focus Quality Center is a quality management platform that can be used for a single project or across multiple IT projects to manage application quality across the entire application lifecycle. The solution provides requirements management, release and cycle management, test management, defect management and reporting from a single platform.
Requirements definition and management
ALM is used by IT departments to capture, manage and track requirements throughout the application development and testing cycle.
