Global Search US About Us Store Log In Apps & Cloud Networking Workspace Security By Industry Resources Application Management Contact Sales Return to Glossary What is Application Management? Application Management (AM) is the lifecycle process for software applications, covering how an application operates, its maintenance, version control, and upgrades from cradle to grave. Application management services are an enterprise-wide endeavor providing governance designed to ensure applications run at peak performance and as efficiently as possible, from the end-user experience to integration with enterprise back office functions such as database, ERP, and SaaS cloud functions such as CRM. In this manner, AM acts as a service operation function that manages and supports applications and key stakeholders who provide operational proficiency or technical expertise through the lifecycle. Some AM processes include Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) and Application Performance Management (APM). Download Now There are several stakeholder groups in AM, who should work as a team to reach critical decisions such as build or buy, whether an application should be modernized or replaced, or where the application should be hosted. Some key stakeholders in AM are: Application Manager/Application Analyst: Owns the AM process and thus manages the overall application lifecycle. Typically, there would be one Application Analyst or a team of Application Analysts for each major application. Also responsible for performing skills gap analysis and acquiring needed skills or staff. Business Unit Owners: Business-level staff members who view applications and AM in terms of bottom-line benefits, increased productivity, impact on revenue, and improved competitive stance. Developers/DevOps/DevSecOps: This group of IT professionals are charged with the design, development, deployment, integration, security, and maintenance of applications. Application users: Users provide feedback on productivity and performance, and key concerns for users include privacy, and security of the applications. The ultimate goal of AM is to implement efficient, reliable, and cost-effective code that enables an enterprise to meet its business objectives by ensuring that the required capabilities – both management and technical – are in place, and to further ensure that any technical issues are rapidly diagnosed and resolved. Why is application management important for the business? Application management is a key factor in a business’ ability to innovate. By ensuring that business functions are being properly addressed with modern applications, business process solutions can be brought to market more efficiently, quickly, and at a lower total cost. When applications are efficiently managed, more IT resources are available to focus on new business challenges and competitive issues. Additionally, effectively managed applications are more reliable and less prone to failure that could lead to loss of functionality. Thus, application management can reduce the risk of downtime and improve overall business continuity. By incorporating new capabilities and monitoring user issues, application management can provide an enhanced end-user experience, which not only increases productivity but also helps accelerate the adoption of new applications or features. The importance of application management to the bottom line is manifold. Efficient management strategies reduce person-hours spent in meetings, yielding higher productivity. Solid application management practices can reduce the need to retain expensive outside consultants, and lower overall operating costs as the number and frequency of application problems decrease. How does Application Management Work? Traditionally, AM was part of the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) processes, specifically as part of the ITIL Process Map as outlined in the process overview of ITIL Application Management. Once the build-vs-buy decision for a given application is made, AM stakeholders collaborate with technical teams including DevSecOps to ensure the requisite skills to design, test, manage, and improve the application’s services are on hand or acquired and constantly refined to meet changing environment and needs. Note that the exact functions of an application management system are constantly evolving, just as application development methodologies have evolved from waterfall to agile to cloud-native. What are application management Services? Since not every organization has the capability of staffing full time AM positions, or is already dealing with IT backlog, many organizations rely on application management services (AMS) to augment their AM capabilities. AMS organizations enable the outsourcing of application maintenance and monitoring, and AMS firms then shoulder the responsibility of patch management, bug fixes, and enhancements, freeing up valuable IT, line of business (LOB), and DevSecOps resources. Even large enterprises utilize AMS services to help reduce backlogs, as evidenced by a Gartner report showing that IT backlogs were hindering application adoption. Enterprises can prevent these backlogs – and the user-dissatisfaction, interruptions and other inefficiencies those backlogs cause – by outsourcing the monitoring, management, bug-fixing and optimization tasks for those apps to an AMS provider. AMS organizations help mitigate continuity risks that occur when key personnel leave, reduce the time required to backfill necessary AM skills, and can contribute to every application from web application to database to custom in-house business code developed on legacy platforms. For many small/medium businesses (SMBs), AMS providers may be the only reasonable way to achieve a robust application lifecycle management process, given the typically limited IT resources present. The AMS market is rapidly growing, with estimates from Grand View Research indicating that the global AMS market would exceed USD $87B by 2025. What does an application manager do? What is an Application Manager? Application Managers are IT professionals who own the AM process that manages the application software lifecycle within the enterprise. Typically, application managers are not developers or users, rather they are analysts who help define the need for new applications, communicate their findings to other key stakeholders, lead implementation, maintenance, and retirement of applications as part of the IT team. Key functions of an application manager include: Identifying business opportunities for new applications by analyzing workflows and determining where efficiencies can be gained Determine whether new application capabilities should be purchased, subscribed to via SaaS, or developed in-house If software is purchased, application manager oversees acquisition of infrastructure, installation, configuration, and application lifecycle If developed in-house, application manager collaborates with development, DevSecOps, and business units to ensure application meets the defined needs and user interface requirements In either case, application managers lead the roll-out to prevent any possible problems from becoming show-stoppers Leads problem resolution by troubleshooting technical issues as they occur and develops a solution to solve root cause issues. Determines when training is needed and oversees training for both IT and user teams Ensuring application’s usefulness, or whether application should be sunsetted in favor of newer application or due to elimination of business function Application managers are problem solvers, and as such must have solid analytical skills and the ability to develop creative solutions to problems. Since AM stakeholders exist throughout the organization, application managers by necessity have solid communication skills and leadership abilities to present and promote their suggestions and see them bear fruit. Skills that are most often associated with application managers include: Strong understanding of project management System analysis including design, development, deployment, and support IT troubleshooting Business process automation (BPA) Database management Communicating technical concepts to non-IT audiences Additionally, experience in developing training programs is a big plus, as are advanced data analytics skills such as Big Data and Machine Learning. Those interested in pursuing a career in application management should also research industry associations such as the Application Developers Alliance. What is Application Lifecycle Management? Application lifecycle management (ALM) describes the ecosystem that manages an application from cradle to grave. ALM is composed of stakeholders, ALM tools, and a management process that spans each phase of an application’s existence. As enterprises evolve from traditional waterfall to agile and DevOps to cloud-native applications, ALM tools and processes evolve in sync, so that there may be multiple ALM processes in a given organization depending on where they are in their transition from traditional to modern applications. One goal of ALM is to combine these multiple development practices into a comprehensive management methodology that encompasses legacy, agile, and cloud-native development. Many enterprises adopting ALM have also embraced continuous integration (CI) and continuous delivery (CD) of applications with frequent releases as opposed to traditional monthly or quarterly releases that embody many changes over a period of time into a single release. Thus, ALM encompasses the lifecycle of applications by considering the need for maintenance and updates as an ongoing process. ALM provides all stakeholders with visibility into the development process, offering a clear view of where the enterprise is in the development, integration, or maintenance of a given application. There are distinct phases of the ALM process including Governance: Beginning with business need, application governance includes the decision-making process on why applications are needed, what problems they solve, what resources will be required to make the application a reality, and what regulatory, security, and other considerations must be taken into account, for example if data must be kept in a certain geography. Development: Development and DevOps teams begin the creation of the application, increasingly utilizing agile tools and methods to achieve CI/CD, whether for containerized deployments or for traditional VM workloads. The development process includes acquiring or writing code, testing the application, and facilitating its deployment once initial development is completed. Waterfall development processes separate testing from development, with agile and DevOps teams testing is performed in conjunction with development as a single integrated process. Maintenance: After deployment, ALM focuses on maintenance for the remainder of the application’s useful life. Frequent releases address both bugs and feature additions, as well as integration with other new or legacy applications. Maintenance also addresses any rehosting necessary if applications are moved from on-premises to cloud and from cloud to containers. Enterprises often rely on one or more ALM tools to facilitate the ALM process, helping to keep track of version control, collaboration, and requests for bug fixes and new features. Popular ALM tools include Basecamp and Atlassian Jira, amongst many others. 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