Software Maintenance

Software maintenance is widely accepted part of SDLC now a days. It stands for all
the modifications and updations done after the delivery of software product. There are
number of reasons, why modifications are required, some of them are briefly
mentioned below:
• Market Conditions - Policies, which changes over the time, such as taxation
and newly introduced constraints like, how to maintain bookkeeping, may trigger
need for modification.
• Client Requirements - Over the time, customer may ask for new features or
functions in the software.
• Host Modifications - If any of the hardware and/or platform (such as operating
system) of the target host changes, software changes are needed to keep
adaptability.
• Organization Changes - If there is any business level change at client end,
such as reduction of organization strength, acquiring another company,
organization venturing into new business, need to modify in the original software
may arise.
Types of maintenance
In a software lifetime, type of maintenance may vary based on its nature. It may be
just a routine maintenance tasks as some bug discovered by some user or it may be
a large event in itself based on maintenance size or nature. Following are some types
of maintenance based on their characteristics:
• Corrective Maintenance - This includes modifications and updations done in
order to correct or fix problems, which are either discovered by user or
concluded by user error reports.
• Adaptive Maintenance - This includes modifications and updations applied to
keep the software product up-to date and tuned to the ever changing world of
technology and business environment.
• Perfective Maintenance - This includes modifications and updates done in
order to keep the software usable over long period of time. It includes new
features, new user requirements for refining the software and improve its
reliability and performance.
• Preventive Maintenance - This includes modifications and updations to
prevent future problems of the software. It aims to attend problems, which are
not significant at this moment but may cause serious issues in future.
Cost of Maintenance
Reports suggest that the cost of maintenance is high. A study on estimating software
maintenance found that the cost of maintenance is as high as 67% of the cost of entire
software process cycle.
On an average, the cost of software maintenance is more than 50% of all SDLC
phases. There are various factors, which trigger maintenance cost go high, such as:
Real-world factors affecting Maintenance Cost
• The standard age of any software is considered up to 10 to 15 years.
• Older softwares, which were meant to work on slow machines with less memory and
storage capacity cannot keep themselves challenging against newly coming
enhanced softwares on modern hardware.
• As technology advances, it becomes costly to maintain old software.
• Most maintenance engineers are newbie and use trial and error method to rectify
problem.
• Often, changes made can easily hurt the original structure of the software, making it
hard for any subsequent changes.
• Changes are often left undocumented which may cause more conflicts in future.
Software-end factors affecting Maintenance Cost
• Structure of Software Program
• Programming Language
• Dependence on external environment
• Staff reliability and availability
Maintenance Activities
IEEE provides a framework for sequential maintenance process activities. It can be
used in iterative manner and can be extended so that customized items and processes
can be included.
These activities go hand-in-hand with each of the following phase:
• Identification & Tracing - It involves activities pertaining to identification of
requirement of modification or maintenance. It is generated by user or system
may itself report via logs or error messages.Here, the maintenance type is
classified also.
• Analysis - The modification is analyzed for its impact on the system including
safety and security implications. If probable impact is severe, alternative
solution is looked for. A set of required modifications is then materialized into
requirement specifications. The cost of modification/maintenance is analyzed
and estimation is concluded.
• Design - New modules, which need to be replaced or modified, are designed
against requirement specifications set in the previous stage. Test cases are
created for validation and verification.
• Implementation - The new modules are coded with the help of structured
design created in the design step.Every programmer is expected to do unit
testing in parallel.
• System Testing - Integration testing is done among newly created modules.
Integration testing is also carried out between new modules and the system.
Finally the system is tested as a whole, following regressive testing procedures.
• Acceptance Testing - After testing the system internally, it is tested for
acceptance with the help of users. If at this state, user complaints some issues
they are addressed or noted to address in next iteration.
• Delivery - After acceptance test, the system is deployed all over the
organization either by small update package or fresh installation of the system.
The final testing takes place at client end after the software is delivered.
Training facility is provided if required, in addition to the hard copy of user
manual.
• Maintenance management - Configuration management is an essential part of
system maintenance. It is aided with version control tools to control versions,
semi-version or patch management.
Software Re-engineering
When we need to update the software to keep it to the current market, without
impacting its functionality, it is called software re-engineering. It is a thorough process
where the design of software is changed and programs are re-written.
Legacy software cannot keep tuning with the latest technology available in the market.
As the hardware become obsolete, updating of software becomes a headache. Even
if software grows old with time, its functionality does not.
For example, initially Unix was developed in assembly language. When language C
came into existence, Unix was re-engineered in C, because working in assembly
language was difficult.
Other than this, sometimes programmers notice that few parts of software need more
maintenance than others and they also need re-engineering.

Re-Engineering Process
• Decide what to re-engineer. Is it whole software or a part of it?
• Perform Reverse Engineering, in order to obtain specifications of existing software.
• Restructure Program if required. For example, changing function-oriented programs
into object-oriented programs.
• Re-structure data as required.
• Apply Forward engineering concepts in order to get re-engineered software.
There are few important terms used in Software re-engineering
Reverse Engineering
It is a process to achieve system specification by thoroughly analyzing, understanding
the existing system. This process can be seen as reverse SDLC model, i.e. we try to
get higher abstraction level by analyzing lower abstraction levels.
An existing system is previously implemented design, about which we know nothing.
Designers then do reverse engineering by looking at the code and try to get the design.
With design in hand, they try to conclude the specifications. Thus, going in reverse
from code to system specification.

Program Restructuring
It is a process to re-structure and re-construct the existing software. It is all about re-
arranging the source code, either in same programming language or from one
programming language to a different one. Restructuring can have either source code-
restructuring and data-restructuring or both.
Re-structuring does not impact the functionality of the software but enhance reliability
and maintainability. Program components, which cause errors very frequently can be
changed, or updated with re-structuring.
The dependability of software on obsolete hardware platform can be removed via re-
structuring.
Forward Engineering
Forward engineering is a process of obtaining desired software from the specifications
in hand which were brought down by means of reverse engineering. It assumes that
there was some software engineering already done in the past.
Forward engineering is same as software engineering process with only one difference
– it is carried out always after reverse engineering.

Component reusability
A component is a part of software program code, which executes an independent task
in the system. It can be a small module or sub-system itself.
Example
The login procedures used on the web can be considered as components, printing
system in software can be seen as a component of the software.
Components have high cohesion of functionality and lower rate of coupling, i.e. they
work independently and can perform tasks without depending on other modules.
In OOP, the objects are designed are very specific to their concern and have fewer
chances to be used in some other software.
In modular programming, the modules are coded to perform specific tasks which can
be used across number of other software programs.
There is a whole new vertical, which is based on re-use of software component, and
is known as Component Based Software Engineering (CBSE).

Re-use can be done at various levels

• Application level - Where an entire application is used as sub-system of new
software.
• Component level - Where sub-system of an application is used.
• Modules level - Where functional modules are re-used.
Software components provide interfaces, which can be used to establish
communication among different components.
Reuse Process
Two kinds of method can be adopted: either by keeping requirements same and
adjusting components or by keeping components same and modifying requirements.

• Requirement Specification - The functional and non-functional requirements

are specified, which a software product must comply to, with the help of existing
system, user input or both.
• Design - This is also a standard SDLC process step, where requirements are
defined in terms of software parlance. Basic architecture of system as a whole
and its sub-systems are created.
• Specify Components - By studying the software design, the designers
segregate the entire system into smaller components or sub-systems. One
complete software design turns into a collection of a huge set of components
working together.
• Search Suitable Components - The software component repository is referred
by designers to search for the matching component, on the basis of functionality
and intended software requirements..
• Incorporate Components - All matched components are packed together to
shape them as complete software.