Software maintenance

Software maintenance stands for all the modifications and updations done after the delivery of software product.

Why modifications are required?

  • Market Conditions– Policies, which changes over the time, and newly introduced constraints like.
  • Client Requirements– Customer may ask for new features or functions in the software.
  • Host Modifications– If any of the hardware and/or platform of the target host changes, software changes are needed to keep adaptability.

Types of maintenance

  • Corrective Maintenance– This includes modifications and updations done in order to correct or fix problems, which are either discovered by user.
  • Adaptive Maintenance– It’s applied to keep the software product up-to date and tuned to the ever changing world of technology and business environment.
  • Perfective Maintenance– Modifications and updates done in order to keep the software usable over long period of time.
  • Preventive Maintenance– Modifications and updations to prevent future problems of the software.

Cost of Maintenance

The cost of maintenance is high. The cost of maintenance is as high as 67% of the cost of entire software process cycle.

maintenance_cost_chart

 

References:

https://www.tutorialspoint.com/software_engineering/software_maintenance_overview.htm

flickr photo by Sean MacEntee https://flickr.com/photos/smemon/4589979488 shared under a Creative Commons (BY) license