Software maintenance is an integral part of the software development life cycle. It begins after the software is deployed and is performed to ensure the software is regularly enhanced to match the changing market demands.
Essentially, software maintenance is the process of regularly nurturing and enhancing the software to eliminate bugs, improve performance, modify features, and undertake other tasks to optimize the software such that it provides the best experience to its users.
After delivering and deploying the software, technology vendors often offer software maintenance services under an annual contract. The cost of software maintenance is generally calculated as an agreed percentage of the original software development cost.
Businesses invest significantly in the software maintenance process for a number of reasons. Let’s look at the detailed benefits of software maintenance below.
Importance of Software Maintenance
Software may require maintenance for several reasons, like feature enhancement, cloud migration, and so on. And if ignored, your business runs the risk of losing efficiency or customers. For example,
An instant messaging application may become outdated if a competitor offers a better version. MSN Messenger, AOL Messenger, and iChat are the best examples of brands that ran out of business because they failed to adapt their software in response to the changing customer needs.
A company may face inefficiencies in its sales management software because its hardware is not compatible with the new features.
A legacy application may cause serious disruptions in the day-to-day processes of an organization when it functions with heavy tech debt. Ensuring timely maintenance of your software helps avoid such scenarios and run your business competently.
Following are some of the most important benefits of software maintenance for your business:
Enhanced Data Security
By performing software maintenance, it becomes easier to reengineer data, fix bugs, and implement encoding constraints, making the solution less vulnerable to attacks. In addition, regular maintenance prepares the software for worst-case scenarios such as a total blackout.
Updating legacy applications with the latest security measures also makes it more difficult for hackers to exploit vulnerabilities, resulting in increased data security for your organization.
Improved Performance and Efficiency
Obsolete functionalities can accumulate tech debt and reduce a system's efficiency, making it less adaptable and inflexible. Software maintenance eliminates these outdated features and coding elements, replacing them with new functionalities.
As a result, the software becomes more adaptable to the latest industry trends and less burdened by tech debt, leading to improved performance and efficiency.
Seamless Project Continuity
Ensuring that systems and IT infrastructure are performing optimally is crucial for project continuity. Any disruption can cause a substantial loss of productivity and hamper the progress of the project.
A well-defined software maintenance plan can help organizations avoid such unforeseen circumstances. It equips the enterprise software to withstand any situation, such as servers going down or a sudden surge in user requests, and keeps the projects moving forward without interruption.
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