Chapter 12, Problem 1Q

Program Plan Intro

Explain four types of system maintenance and provide examples of each type.

Explanation of Solution

Maintenance is required in software or a system in order to fix the issues or bugs that occur during usage of system after its implementation at the site. First and foremost, duty of any software provider is to provide support and maintenance of the system whenever any software is released.

The four types of system maintenance are explained as follows:

Corrective Maintenance:

• Corrective maintenance is mainly performed in order to fix the error in the operational system. Corrective maintenance starts with identification of errors and ends with correction of errors in an operational system.
• Best approach to corrective maintenance is scaled-down version of the SDLC. In which investigation, analysis, design and testing is performed before system implementation.
• During corrective maintenance any new updates are first checked for in test environment and then updated in the operational system.

Examples:

1. Suppose a system is generating errors during authenticating login of employee whose already are already been verified such errors are corrected during corrective maintenance.
2. An error in a program that results in wrong output is debugged and corrected under corrective maintenance.

Adaptive maintenance:

• Adaptive maintenance is mainly performed to add new functions or features to the operational system which enhances its operability.

Main scenario which leads to adaptive maintenance are changes in the procedure, goals and security needs of the organization.

Examples:

1. Adding new voice-based search features in the operational system.

1. Adding new user interface to operational system.

Perfective maintenance:

• Perfective maintenance is mainly perfomed to improve the efficiency, reliability and maintainability of the operational system.
• Perfective maintenance is performed depending on the requests from the users. When users generate any issues regarding performance of the system, requests should be evaluated to determine if perfective maintenance can help in resolving the issue or not.
• Software engineering is used by analysts to during perfective maintenance to identify potential quality and performance improvements.

Examples:

1. Conversion of command line system to graphical user interface.

1. Upgrading wireless network.

Preventive maintenance:

• Preventive maintenance is mainly performed so that future failure or faults related to system functionality can be avoided or reduced.

It helps is providing satisfaction to the user, decrease in downtime and reduced total cost of ownership (TCO) and directly affect the success or the organization.

Examples:

1. Installing new antivirus software.

1. Implement regular defragmentation process.