Software Maintenance: Why It’s Essential Following Application Deployment

The Importance of Software Maintenance in the Software Lifecycle

In software lifecycle management (SLM), software maintenance follows the development and deployment phases for new releases. Studies suggest that maintenance accounts for 40-80% of the total cost of software ownership. This is a mammoth cost in the overall software lifecycle management process, so it must be done properly.

The software lifecycle management process varies from company to company, but generally, SLM phases include:

• Requirements Gathering and Analysis
• Design
• Implementation
• Testing and Quality Assurance
• Deployment
• Maintenance and Support
• End-of-Life or Replacement

Although software maintenance is positioned at the end of this cycle, it is far from being an afterthought. It’s the longest phase of the software lifecycle and is arguably one of the most important.

Effective software maintenance helps to determine the long-term success and ROI of the software that you have created for the market.

Why Is Software Maintenance Needed?

User Requirements Evolve Over Time

Businesses are not static. As things grow and change, so does their software. Software maintenance allows you to adapt your software as your needs change. This lets your software retain its value as an asset rather than a burden of legacy code.

Advancements in Technology

We all know how often things change in tech. New frameworks, technologies, and services often come into the market. Regular maintenance prepares your teams and the software they produce to use the latest tech. Maintaining software also allows your teams to implement new features while staying compatible with changing systems.

New Cybersecurity Threats

The alarming reality is that cyber threats are becoming more sophisticated. Continual maintenance allows you to identify and patch security vulnerabilities as they are discovered. The software can become a liability without regular security updates. A lack of maintenance exposes organisations to data breaches and other security risks.

Optimise for Performance

Over time, software can become bloated as new features and bug fixes are added. Regular maintenance allows you to optimise performance and enhance user experience. This ensures that your software continues to meet the demands of your user base.

Regulatory Compliance

Laws and regulations change depending on the market and industry you operate. Software maintenance keeps applications in line with the current legal requirements.

Bug Fixes and Quality Improvements

Regardless of how good your team is, no software application is perfect when it is first released. Maintenance lets you identify and correct bugs that weren’t caught during initial testing. General quality improvements can also be made, based on real-world usage data and user feedback.

Scaling Up

Software needs to scale up as users and data volumes grow. Maintenance actions involve scalability optimisations that will help handle increased loads and users. This includes spinning up additional resources and replicating your services on additional nodes.

Shortlist Best SAM Tools For Your Software Maintenance Requirements

Organisations need to keep software applications maintained, particularly when considering compliance and security. To do so effectively, business’s will deploy a Software Asset Management Software.

Using our sophisticated software comparison tool (below), select a SAM tool that perfectly aligns with your software maintenance needs.

Understanding the Software Maintenance Process

Deploying your cloud software application is not the end of its development lifecycle. Improvements and changes should be made throughout the lifetime of the product. To do this, you need software maintenance.

Maintenance is a necessary part of launching a successful software application. The process involves modifying, updating, and optimising after deployment.

But it’s not just about fixing bugs. You need to continue development by improving features and applying performance fixes with each new release. When you use this kind of methodology you can adapt your software to new environments or customer requirements when you need to.

To get the most out of your applications, you need to have a software maintenance plan. A general process usually follows these 6 steps:

1. Issue Identification and Triage
2. Impact Analysis and Feasibility Study
3. Change Design and Implementation
4. Rigorous Testing and Quality Assurance
5. Controlled Deployment of Updates
6. Continuous Monitoring and Performance Evaluation

This is a never-ending process that will keep your software running smoothly and up-to-date for years to come.

Advantages of Software Maintenance Activities

• Extended Software Lifespan: Regular maintenance can extend the lifespan of software. It delays the need for expensive replacement projects that take time to create. This is important for mission-critical legacy applications that are also difficult to rewrite.
• Improves Reliability and Stability: It goes without saying, but fixing bugs and optimising performance improves the overall reliability of your software. This leads to fewer crashes, reduced downtime, and a more stable IT environment.
• Enhances Security Posture: Regular updates and patches protect against new security threats, potentially reducing the risk of data breaches. The scary part is that new exploits target established frameworks all the time. (An example of this is log4j, a widely used Java logging framework. It was at the centre of a massive exploit in 2021. It led to disruptions and outages across multiple industries. While the efforts to mitigate this exploit were put in place, it was only patched after the fact. Those with maintenance processes in place were able to quickly implement mitigations.)
• Cost Efficiency: While maintenance involves ongoing costs, it’s generally far less expensive than developing new software from scratch.
• Increases Productivity: Maintenance keeps software running smoothly and improves performance. A more responsive application leads to better user experiences and increased productivity. Sluggish and non-responsive applications tend to slow user interactions and decrease productivity.
• Competitive Advantage: Software that continues to improve and innovate can give you an edge over the competition. Companies often get complacent when software is just ‘good enough’.
• Compliance: Regular software maintenance is needed so that software remains compliant with changing regulations. If you deal with personal data, financial records, or medical information then you have to maintain compliance.
• Reduces Technical Debt: Getting to the finish line faster in software development leads to short cuts. These shortcuts create problems down the line, with code that is harder to maintain. This is what is known as technical debt, and it takes time to resolve. Consistent maintenance helps manage and reduce technical debt.
• Better Decision Making through Software Asset Management (SAM): External tools can give you a better picture about how your software is performing. Tools like Software Asset Management tools can provide information about software usage and performance.

By using tools like SAM Software, organisations can ensure their software assets continue to deliver value. Try not to think of software maintenance as a grudge purchase, but as an investment.

Pros and Cons of Different Software Maintenance Types

Corrective Software Maintenance

This approach fixes bugs and errors that are discovered after the software has been deployed. Corrective maintenance is usually reported by users or detected by monitoring systems.

Advantages:

• Improves software reliability and stability
• Enhances user satisfaction by quickly resolving issues
• Prevents potential data loss or corruption
• Maintains the software’s reputation and trustworthiness

Disadvantages:

• Can be reactive and unpredictable, potentially disrupting planned work
• May require immediate attention, leading to resource allocation challenges
• Can be costly if not managed efficiently

Adaptive Software Maintenance

This type of maintenance involves modifying the software to adapt to changes in the environment. Things such as new hardware, operating systems, or regulatory requirements are covered here. It’s all about keeping the software current and compatible.

Advantages:

• Keeps software compatible with new technologies and platforms
• Ensures ongoing regulatory compliance
• Extends the software’s useful life by removing obsolete items
• Allows the software to take advantage of new infrastructure capabilities

Disadvantages:

• Can be costly and time-consuming, especially for major adaptations
• May require significant changes to the software architecture
• Requires staying abreast of technological and regulatory changes

Perfective Software Maintenance

This involves improving the software at regular intervals. It sometimes includes adding new features or enhancing existing ones based on user feedback or customer requests.

Advantages:

• Improves user experience
• Keeps software competitive
• Allows the software to meet new business needs

Disadvantages:

• Needs careful planning and prioritisation
• Can potentially introduce new bugs or issues if not properly managed
• Can lead to feature bloat if not controlled

Preventive Software Maintenance

A proactive approach involves making changes to prevent problems before they happen. It usually focuses on improving maintainability and reliability. Its main focus is on future-proofing the software and fixing anticipated issues before they become a problem.

Advantages:

• Reduces the chances of major issues in the future
• Improves long-term maintainability and reduces technical debt
• Leads to cost savings over time by preventing larger issues
• Enhances overall software quality and performance

Disadvantages:

• Benefits may not be visible at first, making it harder to justify
• Requires investment in analysis and planning
• Can involve refactoring or rewriting code, which carries risks

5 Processes Involved in Software Maintenance

1. Hosting Infrastructure Maintenance

The infrastructure that runs your software needs maintenance so that your applications have a stable environment to operate in that performs well.

What gets done during hosting infrastructure maintenance:

• Server updates and security patches
• Server health monitoring and performance metrics analysis
• Server capacity maintenance and resource scaling
• Networking configuration reviews

2. Testing Backups and Disaster Recovery

When disaster strikes, can you get your application back online quickly? Regular backups and a solid disaster recovery plan make all the difference during troubled times. They are necessary for maintaining data integrity and ensuring business continuity. This process is your safety net against data loss and extended downtime.

What happens during backup and disaster recovery maintenance:

• Checking existing backups, and testing automated data backups
• Testing backup integrity and restoration processes
• Updating disaster recovery procedures
• Simulating disaster recovery drills to make sure everything works

3. Performance Monitoring and Optimisation

Performance monitoring helps identify issues before they become critical during maintenance. If you find anything that needs attention, then you can add it to your maintenance tasks ahead of time.

What to look out for during maintenance:

• Unusual changes in key performance indicators (KPIs) and metrics
• Signs of performance bottlenecks
• Slow or inefficient database queries and application code
• Opportunities to implement or improve caching strategies and content delivery networks (CDNs)

4. Security Updates and Patch Management

Keeping your software secure is a never-ending process. This means constant monitoring and quick action when you spot vulnerabilities.

What gets done during this maintenance:

• Conducting regular security audits and penetration testing
• Applying security patches promptly
• Updating encryption keys, protocols and certificates

5. Version Control and Release Management

Managing different versions of the software and coordinating releases is complicated. Maintaining software releases and version control ensures smooth updates.

What gets tested during this maintenance:

• Maintaining a robust version control system
• Planning and scheduling releases
• Managing different environments (development, testing, staging, production)
• Implementing continuous integration and continuous deployment (CI/CD) pipelines

Leveraging Software Asset Management (SAM) Tools

Software Asset Management tools provide IT managers with valuable insights and capabilities such as:

• Licence Compliance: SAM tools help ensure that all software is properly licensed, avoiding legal issues and unexpected costs.
• Usage Tracking/Metering: By monitoring software usage patterns, SAM tools can identify underutilised assets, helping you make decisions about renewals and resource allocation.
• Patch Management: Many SAM tools include features for managing and deploying software updates across the organisation.
• Cost Optimisation: By providing a clear view of software assets and their usage, SAM tools can help identify opportunities for cost savings.
• Audit Readiness: SAM tools keep detailed records of software assets, making it easier to respond to audits.
• End-of-Life Management: These tools can help track software approaching end-of-life, allowing for timely planning of upgrades or replacements.

Challenges of Software Maintenance for IT Software Managers

While software maintenance is crucial, it comes with its own set of challenges that IT software managers must navigate:

• Balancing Maintenance with New Development: Managers often struggle to allocate resources between maintaining existing software and developing new features or applications. It’s a delicate balance between keeping current systems running smoothly and driving innovation.
• Managing Technical Debt: Shortcuts taken during initial development can lead to increased maintenance costs down the line. Addressing this technical debt while keeping the software operational can be a significant challenge.
• Knowledge Transfer and Documentation: As team members change, ensuring that knowledge about the software is effectively transferred and documented can be challenging. This is particularly true for legacy systems or complex applications.
• Maintaining Legacy Systems: Older systems may use outdated technologies, making them difficult and expensive to maintain. Finding developers with the right skills for these systems can also be challenging.

Software Maintenance Best Practices For Getting Started

To address challenges and ensure effective software maintenance, IT software managers can adopt 5 best practices:

1. Use Change Management Process: This helps control and track changes, reducing the risk of unexpected issues.
2. Look at Implementing Automated Testing: Comprehensive automated tests can catch issues early and make maintenance tasks less risky.
3. Documentation is King: Keep documentation up-to-date and easily accessible to facilitate knowledge transfer and reduce dependence on tribal knowledge.
4. Think DevOps: Implementing DevOps can help streamline the maintenance process, making it easier to deploy updates and manage environments.
5. Code Refactoring is Your Friend: Allocate time for regular code cleanup to manage technical debt and improve maintainability.