A Methodology for Software Maintenance

Software maintenance is the most expensive stage of the software life cycle. However, most software organizations do not use any methodology for maintenance, although they do use it for new developments. In this article, a methodology for managing the software maintenance process is presented. The methodology defines clearly and rigorously all the activities and tasks to be executed during the process and provides different sets of activities for five different types of maintenance (urgent and non-urgent corrective, perfective, preventive, and adaptive). In order to help in the execution of tasks, some techniques have been defined in the methodology. Also, several activities and tasks for establishing and ending outsourcing relationships are proposed, as well as several metrics to assess the maintainability of databases and their influence on the rest of the Information System. This methodology is being applied by Atos ODS, a multinational organization among whose primary business activities is the outsourcing of software maintenance.