Every software has an ongoing life cycle and maintenance is a crucial part that keeps it up and running. The modification and tweaks that engineers perform to the software after delivery to the user are termed software maintenance.
As the functional efficiency of the software diminishes over time, maintenance becomes important and hence, you need to focus on minimizing the maintenance cost. Software engineers categorize maintenance into four types.
- Corrective maintenance
- Adaptive maintenance
- Perfective maintenance
- Preventative maintenance
Every maintenance type has its significance and suits different use cases. Let’s learn more about all these categories in detail.
Corrective Software Maintenance
The typical form of maintenance that aims on addressing bugs and faults within the software is referred to as corrective maintenance. Neglecting these errors can cost you hugely as they can impact different parts of the software such as the code, design, or logic.
Software vendors can address issues in the bug report sent by the users and can perform corrective maintenance. Corrective maintenance is essential when there are errors and faults in the software that impacts the basic functions largely.
Adaptive Software Maintenance
The process of changing the software due to the change in the environment of policies is known as adaptive maintenance. When there is a change to the operating system or the features, cloud storage migration, hardware updates, etc., adaptive maintenance is required.
The changes are implemented in response to the change in regulations. The aim is to keep the software running while ensuring that it meets compliance standards. Proper analysis and scoping are required while preparing an action plan for adaptive maintenance.
Perfective MaintenanceÂ
As the name indicates, perfective maintenance is when changes are made to the product to make it perfect for the end-users. This kind of maintenance requires strong project management teams with years of expertise in delivering the best customer experience.
The process involves adding new features or upgrading the existing ones to ensure that the product meets user expectations. Perfective maintenance maintains the quality of the software while keeping it relevant to market trends.
Preventative Maintenance
Scalability is the key to success. The preventative maintenance ensures that the software integrates all advanced features that make it strong enough to lead the cutting-edge competitive market. Changes and adaptations are made to reduce the risk of deterioration.
Preventative software maintenance addresses software issues at any given time that can lead to performance or functional issues in the future. These are latent faults that need to be identified and corrected to prevent potential faults.
Software Maintenance StrategyÂ
All software companies must have a specific maintenance strategy in place to ensure that the product performs well without displaying issues and errors.
For businesses that do not have a dedicated engineering team, outsourcing the software development and maintenance asks is the best way to scale as per current market needs.
If you are looking to develop software for your business or software maintenance services for the existing app, the Sombra tech support team can help. The experts will suggest the software maintenance strategy that’s best for your product.