Software maintenance is the process of modifying a software system or component after delivery to rectify faults, improve performance or adapt to a changed environment. It is a set of activities performed to keep the software functional and behavioural for as long as possible. Steps are carried out to keep the software up-to-date and bug free after the implementation of the software. Experts from Nexsus Techno Solutions Pvt Ltd are giving you four major reasons to opt for software maintenance.
- Adaptive Reasons – A software ecosystem constantly changes and regular maintenance is required to help it adapt to the new changes.Work patterns, compilers, software platforms, hardware upgrades andall other such things affect the working of software. Adaptive maintenance is necessary to keep your software latest along with long lifespan.
- Corrective Reasons – Maintenance is carried out to repair the prevalent faults in the software which involves fixing of bugs due to bad code or major systemrepairing. Bugs may also appear in case of change in the hardware, operating system or other accompanying parts in the system. Corrective maintenance includes testing to detect a problem and injecting a fix without disturbing the rest of the system.
- Perfective Reasons – Software maintenance is performed to fine tune the performance ability, usability and functionality of the software. It can simply vary from changing the GUI of the software to make it more user-friendly and attractive to making drastic changes in the core code to improve the runtime and performance. Perfective maintenance accounts for around 60 per cent of the maintenance cost.
- Preventive Reasons – Preventive maintenance is essential precaution against problems that may occur in future. An engineer can take decisions to re-engineer the software through data and code restructuring by prudently observing the conditions in the ecosystem. Preventive maintenance does not really contribute to the functionality of the software but rather prevents problems and additional repair costs that come with them.