Software maintenance is changing, modifying, and updating software according to customer needs. Software maintenance is performed after a product is released for various reasons, including improving the overall software, fixing problems or bugs, improving performance, and more.
Software maintenance is a natural part of the SDLC (Software Development Life Cycle). Developers cannot afford to release a product and let it run simply; they must constantly seek to improve and enhance their software to remain competitive and relevant.
Using the proper software maintenance techniques and strategies is essential to keeping the software running for the long term and ensuring customer and user satisfaction.
Why is software maintenance necessary?
Creating new software and releasing it to the world is an exciting step for any company. There is a lot to designing and running software, including the creation and coding, licensing models, marketing, and more. However, all great software must be able to keep up with the times.
This means proper monitoring and maintenance. As technology changes at the speed of light, software must keep up with market changes and demands.
What are the four types of software maintenance?
Each of the four types of software maintenance is performed for various reasons and purposes. Some programs may require one, two, or all types of care during their lifetime.
- Corrective Software Maintenance
- Proactive Software Maintenance
- Comprehensive Software Maintenance
- Adaptive Software Maintenance
Software Corrective Maintenance
Software Corrective Maintenance is a classic and typical type of maintenance. Software corrective maintenance is required when something goes wrong with the software, including bugs and errors. These can significantly impact the software’s overall functionality and should therefore be addressed as soon as possible.
Software vendors are often able to resolve issues requiring corrective maintenance due to bug reports submitted by users. Suppose a company can identify and fix bugs before users notice them. In that case, it’s a bonus that makes your company more reputable and trustworthy (after all, no one likes an error message).
Proactive software maintenance
Proactive software maintenance looks ahead to keep your software running as planned for as long as possible. This includes necessary changes, upgrades, customizations, and more. Preventive software maintenance can fix minor problems that may be insignificant at once but may grow in the future. These are latent defects and must be identified and corrected to prevent them from becoming actual ones.
Comprehensive software maintenance
As with all products on the market, new problems and ideas arise when the software is released to the public. Users see that the software needs new features or requirements to make it the best tool available for their needs. This is where complete software maintenance comes into play.
The goal of complete software maintenance is to refine the software, adding new features as needed and removing minor or ineffective parts in that software. This process keeps the software relevant as the market and user needs change.
Software Adaptive Maintenance
Software Adaptive Maintenance addresses changing technologies and the rules and regulations related to your software. That includes changes to the operating system, cloud storage, hardware, etc. When these changes are made, your software must adapt sufficiently to meet the new requirements and continue functioning well.
Software Maintenance Strategies
Every software company must have a specific strategy for effective and comprehensive software maintenance.
Documentation is an essential strategy in software development. If software documentation is not up-to-date, scaling may seem impossible. The documentation should contain information on how the code works, solutions to potential problems, etc.
Quality assurance is also an essential part of the software maintenance plan. While QA is necessary before the first release of the software, it can also be incorporated much earlier in the process (as early as the design phase) to ensure proper software development and provide feedback on changes if necessary.
Having a software maintenance plan is the first step to an effective process. You need the right technology configured to work with your software and the best experts to do this. Start your maintenance process now.
