Document the component lifecycle

The component lifecycle describes the succession of stages that the component goes through over time. A robust component lifecycle management includes versioning and planning for successor components to ensure that IT continues to support critical business areas.

Not all company's document their component lifecycles and it is not mandatory in Alfabet FastLane. However, robust component lifecycle management is key to the health to the business and helps you to understand identify and manage lifecycle conflicts. By documenting the lifecycles of the components in your technology portfolio, you will be able to identify which components are approaching end-of-life but have no defined successor components. Furthermore, you can understand which applications are at risk if the relevant technologies are no longer available.

In Alfabet FastLane, a component lifecycle consists of the following stages:

• Manufacturer Support: Indicates that the technology is relevant to be used in a production environment.
• Manufacturer Extended Support: Indicates that the technology is still available, but should be avoided for use in a production environment.

The active period of the component is the time between the component's start and end date. Each lifecycle phase is aligned with the proceeding and succeeding lifecycle phase that has been defined. Typically, the object state is set to Active during the lifecycle phase Manufacture Support.

Go to Step > Lifecycle: A component lifecycle describes the different phases of the planned schedule of the component.

Gantt reports that visualize the component lifecycle will also reflect the component’s active period which is when the component is actually being used in the enterprise. This object state typically corresponds to the component’s start and end dates and should be set to Active when the active is in use.

Define the component's lifecycle. To do so, either:

• Click the Edit button to open the wizard and select Lifecycle in the Go to Step field
• In the data table, click the navigate  button of the component you want to define. Click Overview and scroll to the Lifecycle page and open it.

• Add lifecycle phases to the component's lifecycle.Include lifecycle phases by setting a checkmark in the checkbox for the lifecycle phase in the left pane. Only lifecycle phases that are selected can be defined.
• Set the start and end of a lifecycle phase.In the timeline, select a lifecycle phase (colored bar) and drag the handles to define the start and end dates for the lifecycle phase. Select the Keep Phases Duration checkbox to retain the current definition in the adjacent lifecycle phases . If you do not select the Keep Phases Duration checkbox, the adjacent lifecycle phases will increase or decrease proportionally.
• Set the start and end of the active period.Click the red bar for the active period and drag the handles to define the start and end dates for the active period. The selected object’s start and end dates will change correspondingly.
• Align the start and and of the active period with the lifecycle phase.Click Align Active Period to automatically align the start/end dates of the active period with the start/end dates of the lifecycle phases that begin and end the active period.