Software solutions go through many iterations, but failure to maintain them could lead to vulnerabilities and an inability to keep up with the competition. Read this comprehensive guide to learn about software maintenance from its meaning, and importance to its types, and models.

What is software maintenance?

Software maintenance is an integral part of the software development life cycle. It begins after the software is deployed and is performed to ensure the software is regularly enhanced to match the changing market demands.

Businesses invest significantly in the software maintenance process for a number of reasons. Let’s look at the detailed benefits of software maintenance below.

Importance of software maintenance

Software may require maintenance for several reasons, like feature enhancement, cloud migration, and so on. Ensuring timely maintenance of your software helps run your business competently. Following are some of the most important benefits of software maintenance for your business:

• Increased data security

  Thanks to software maintenance, reengineering data, bug fixing, and encoding constraints become easier, preventing the solution from being vulnerable. It even prepares you for worst-case scenarios, like a total blackout. Moreover, maintenance is essential to combat hacking attacks. Generally, hackers and threat agents find hacking older applications easier. Modernizing your legacy applications and equipping them with the latest security measures lead to enhanced data security in your organization.

• Improved performance and efficiency:

  Obsolete functionalities unnecessarily accumulate tech debt and reduce a system’s efficiency. Plus, they make the software unadaptable and rigid.

• Seamless project continuity:

  All the systems and IT infrastructure performing optimally is essential to your project continuity. In case of any disruption, your organization’s processes and productivity may suffer substantially. With a clear software maintenance plan, enterprises can ensure that unforeseen circumstances don’t affect their projects and systems. Whether the servers are down or there is a sudden hike in user requests, software maintenance equips your enterprise software to withstand them and keep the projects going. Plus, it ensures applications stay in compliance with industry regulations, legal standards, and data protection laws.

Phases of software maintenance life cycle

Software maintenance is an ongoing activity that includes optimization, error correction, deletion of discarded features, and enhancement of existing features. IEEE has provided a detailed framework that tech teams can use iteratively, with custom activities and processes. According to this framework, the major phases of the software maintenance life cycle are:

• Problem identification phase:

  In this phase, tech teams identify the software modification requests and assign identification numbers to each. Then, developers assess each modification request to determine the type of maintenance activity (adaptive, corrective, preventive, or perfective). After the classification, they prioritize each modification request to determine the order in which it will be processed.

• Problem analysis phase

  The problem analysis phase determines the feasibility and scope of each validated modification request. This is the phase wherein developers plan the possible changes to be made in the software. Here, the input attribute comprises validated modification requests, an initial estimate of resources, repository information, and project documentation.

• Design phase

  At this stage, developers create new modules that need replacement or modification based on requirements specified in earlier stages. They also create test cases that address safety and security concerns to validate and verify the system.

• Implementation phase:

  The implementation phase is where the developers make modifications to the code, add specifications, integrate new features, and modify the whole software. Here, the input attribute comprises the design phase output, source code, modified system, and project documentation.

• System test phase:

  In this phase, the development/testing team performs integration testing between new modules and the system. This is done to ensure no new faults are introduced in the software after modifying it during the maintenance process.

• Acceptance test phase:

  Internal users or a third party specifies and performs tests on the fully integrated system in acceptance testing. The objective here is to verify that the new features meet the requirements stated in the modification request. The input attribute comprises acceptance test plans, cases, procedures, and a fully integrated system.

• Delivery phase:

  After successful acceptance testing, the team delivers updated software to the end users. Also, they also deliver exhaustive documentation consisting of manuals and help files that describe the software’s operation and hardware specifications.

Conclusion

Software maintenance is an ongoing process, not a one-time fix. By understanding its importance, the different types of maintenance, and the key stages involved, you can establish a robust maintenance strategy. This ensures your software continues to deliver value, meet user needs, and remains competitive in the ever-evolving technological landscape.