Software Maintenance

SOFTWARE Maintenance

The maintenance phase of the software cycle is the time in which a Software product performs useful work.

After a system is successfully implemented, it should be maintained in a proper manner. System maintenance is an important aspect in the software development life cycle. The need for system maintenance is to make adaptable to the changes in the system environment. There may be social, technical and other environmental changes, which affects a system, which is being implemented. Software product enhancements may involve providing new functional capabilities, improving user displays and mode of interaction, upgrading the performance characteristics of the system. So only through proper system maintenance procedures, the system can be adapted to cope up with these changes.

Software maintenance is far more than “finding mistakes”. We may define maintenance by describing four activities that are undertaken after program is released for use. The first maintenance activity occurs because it is unreasonable to assume that software testing will uncover all latent errors in a large software system. During the use of any large program, errors will occur and be reported to the developer.

The process that includes the diagnosis and correction of one or more errors is called corrective maintenance. The second activity that contributes to a definition of maintenance occurs because of the rapid change that is encountered in every aspect of computing. Therefore, adaptive maintenance- an activity that modifies software to properly interfere with a changing environment is both necessary and commonplace.

The third activity that may be applied to a definition of maintenance occurs when a software package is successful. As the software is used, recommendations for new capabilities, modifications to existing functions, and general enhancements are received from users. To satisfy requests in this category, perfective maintenance is performed. This activity accounts for the majority of all effort expended on software maintenance.

The fourth maintenance activity occurs when software is changed to improve future maintainability or reliability, or to provide a better basis for future enhancements. Often called preventive maintenance, this activity is characterized by reverse engineering and re-engineering techniques