The document discusses the system development life cycle (SDLC) in detail. It describes the 8 main steps of SDLC as systems investigation, systems analysis, systems design, programming, testing, implementation, operation, and maintenance. For each step, it provides explanations of the key activities and objectives. The document also covers alternative development methods like prototyping, joint application design, rapid application development, and object-oriented development. Finally, it discusses database management approaches and the advantages of using a database over traditional file-oriented data storage.