Software Maintenance

Software Maintenance

1. is defined in the international standard for software maintenance: ISO/IEC/IEEE 14764

   • identifies the primary activities of software maintenance as process implementation, problem and modification analysis, modification implementation, maintenance review/acceptance, migration, and retirement.

2. sustains the software product throughout its life cycle

   • Maintenance must be performed in order to • correct faults; • improve the design; • implement enhancements; • interface with other softwares; • adapt programs so that different hardware, software, system features, and telecommunications facilities can be used; • migrate legacy software; and • retire software. The maintainer’s activities comprise five key characteristics: • maintaining control over the software’s day-to-day functions; • maintaining control over software modification; • perfecting existing functions; • identifying security threats and fixing security vulnerabilities; and • preventing software performance from degrading to unacceptable levels

3. Maintenance is needed to ensure that the software continues to satisfy user requirements.

4. include four categories, as follows. • Corrective maintenance: reactive modification (or repairs) of a software product performed after delivery to correct discovered problems. Adaptive maintenance: modification of a software product, performed after delivery, to keep a software product usable in a changed or changing environment. Perfective maintenance: modification of a software product after delivery to provide enhancements for users, improvement of program documentation, and recoding to improve software performance, maintainability or other software attributes. • Preventive maintenance: modification of a software product after delivery to detect and correct latent faults in the software product before they become operational faults.

5. Having a permanent maintenance team has many benefits: • allows for specialization; • creates communication channels; • promotes an egoless, collegiate atmosphere; • reduces dependency on individuals; • allows for periodic audit checks

6. Software engineers must understand the different categories of software maintenance, discussed above, in order to address the question of estimating the cost of software maintenance.