Software Maintenance

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What is Software Maintenance?


Software Maintenance is a very broad activity that includes error
corrections, enhancements of capabilities, deletion of obsolete capabilities,
and optimization.


Categories of Maintenance


Corrective maintenance
This refer to modifications initiated by defects in the software.


Adaptive maintenance

It includes modifying the software to match changes in the ever changing
environment.


Perfective maintenance

It means improving processing efficiency or performance, or restructuring
the software to improve changeability. This may include enhancement of
existing system functionality, improvement in computational efficiency etc.


Other types of maintenance
There are long term effects of corrective, adaptive and perfective changes.
This leads to increase in the complexity of the software, which reflect
deteriorating structure. The work is required to be done to maintain it or to
reduce it, if possible. This work may be named as preventive
maintenance.


Maintenance is Manageable


A common misconception about maintenance is that it is not manageable.
Report of survey conducted by Lientz & Swanson gives some interesting
observations:


Program Understanding
The first phase consists of analyzing the program in order to understand.


Generating Particular Maintenance Proposal
The second phase consists of generating a particular maintenance
proposal to accomplish the implementation of the maintenance objective.


Ripple Effect
The third phase consists of accounting for all of the ripple effect as a
consequence of program modifications.