Implementing changes and designing changes are not major maintenance activities

April 12, 2019 at 8:00 pm

After reading through Chapter 14 of our “Modern Systems Analysis and Design” textbook, which largely focused on “Maintaining Information Systems”, I believe that I’ve developed a better understanding of some of the intricacies of the maintenance phase in the software development life cycle. Among the most important things that I learned through studying this chapter was the standard processes that are performed during the maintenance phase, which I had previously underestimated. An interesting takeaway I got about these processes was that they similarly emulate the larger software development life cycle phases where, for example, the process of obtaining a maintenance request in the overall maintenance phase equates to the initial planning phase of the software development life cycle. I had also learned of the appropriate terminology for maintenance performed for differing circumstances, such as corrective maintenance which is performed to squash bugs and errors, adaptive maintenance for adapting the technology to various changes, perfective maintenance for improved performance, and preventive maintenance for reducing risk of future errors.

April 12, 2019 at 11:21 pm

Chapter 14 reveals that the maintenance process of the SDLC is the final stage and reveals that the SDLC is therefore a cyclic process whereby we have to come to the first procedure of the SDLC process to make it a complete cycle. The maintenance process has four stages that this paper will mention and explain further for understanding. It also has to be noted that these stages are very vital and none of them can be ignored for the success of the maintenance process. Obtaining the maintenance requests is the initial most procedure and this has conditions by which it should follow to be fulfilled. It employs a formal procedure where the users can submit the change requests of the system. The SSR as mentioned earlier in this lesson is the user request book for each user of the system. Many companies have such a form like the SSR which they use for several reasons like requesting new development, reporting of the problems and also they extensively use this feature in requesting for new features within an already existing system. This procedure really requires that the company officially states or appoints an individual that is responsible for the collection of the requests and managing their dispersal to the maintenance personnel. On receiving a request, analysis about the request must be done to determine how the new request will affect the existing system and also how long it will be in existence. Other procedures in this stage are transforming requests into changes followed by designing changes and finally implementation of the changes. They are achieved in a cycle for the achievement of the desired change in a system.

April 13, 2019 at 12:27 am

The system maintenance is different from what I thought because it’s not only a part of SDLC but also has many similarities with the SDLC. There are four steps in the maintenance process, and they are obtaining maintenance requests, transforming requests into changes, designing changes, and implementing changes, which matches SDLC phases correspondingly which are planning, analysis, design, implementation, and maintenance. It’s also easy to distinguish maintenance and SDLC because SDLC is mostly involved changes in the hardware or software platform or when fundamental assumptions and properties of the data, logic, or process models change, and maintenance process mostly involves reuse most existing system modules in producing the new system version. There are four types of maintenance such as corrective maintenance, adaptive maintenance, perfective maintenance, and preventive maintenance, and I found adaptive maintenance and preventive maintenance are two types that interest me the most. Adaptive maintenance is functionality changes because of business needs or migration. Preventive maintenance is making changes to reduce the chance of future system failure, which I found is unexpected important because system failure could be very expensive and making changes to a system that works fine right now is also challenge for decision makers to leverage.

April 13, 2019 at 2:14 am

Maintenance is the last and final phase of the SDLC which makes it a complete cycle. The maintenance phase of the SDLC occurs after the product is in full operation. As stated in this chapter, maintenance involves the following four major activities – Obtaining maintenance request, transforming request into changes, Design changes and Implementation changes. Maintenance of software can include software upgrades, repairs, and fixes of the software if it breaks.

Maintenance is a crucial activity for linking the experiences of users or customers with the product delivery organization. For example: Microsoft’s introduction of the Office 2010 software suite or the introduction of the Windows 7 operating system is the best example. Although the newest version of these software programs are commercially available to computer users, the company continues to maintain previous versions of the software and make patches available through Windows Update services for a specified amount of time. And this phase is the longest of all phases of the software life cycle. The primary reason that the maintenance phase last longest is the life of the software. Most software programs remain in operation until they become obsolete due to changes in a user’s needs or until the cost of maintaining the software becomes more expensive.

April 13, 2019 at 2:54 am

This chapter introduces the system maintenance, discussing the process and the deliverables and outcomes from it as well as web-based applications. One point is that the system maintenance is the largest expenditure for majority of organizations, and it takes a large proportion of works to programmers nowadays. Furthermore, many factors influence the maintainability of a system. It includes the number of latent defects, the number of customers, documentation quality, personnel, tools, software structure. I will pay more attention to the number of latent defects (unknown errors in the system after installed), the number of customers and even documentation quality because it directly relates to the costs to maintain a system for organizations.

April 13, 2019 at 2:58 am

As discussed throughout the semester, maintenance of an information system is an essential part of the software development life cycle. Maintenance is necessary for the success and evolution of a system. There are several types of maintenance, including corrective maintenance, adaptive maintenance, perfective maintenance, and preventive maintenance. Each of these types are unique, and is described below:

Corrective maintenance deals with the repair of defects found in day-to-day system functions due to errors in its design, coding, or implementation.

Adaptive maintenance addresses changes made to operating systems, hardware or platforms due to changes in the operating environment or business needs.

Perfective maintenance involves changing system functionality by refining, deleting or adding new features.

Preventive maintenance refers to performing activities to prevent the occurrence of errors and chance of system failure.

The life of an information system does not end when it finally launches. In actuality, its life has just started. With that said, staying up-to-date with maintenance helps the system to evolve and successfully achieve its intended goals.

April 13, 2019 at 8:00 am

To me, maintaining an information system is important but yet not an easy job to do due to the nature of information technology is changing rapidly. I found the Process of Maintaining information system absolutely critical and useful.
1. Obtaining maintenance requests
2. Transforming requests into changes
3. Designing changes
4. Implementing changes
With this guideline, it makes the job easier to stay on the right track. Maintaining an information system is critical for businesses as it keeps corporate data on track so it can create more values for organizations.

April 13, 2019 at 8:12 am

Maintenance — as it is a stage in the System Development Life Cycle process — is not always on the forefront of my mind when it comes to the SDLC. The Maintenance stage begins as soon as the new system is implemented. An IS Auditor, Data Center employee, of other SME will monitor the system and run periodic test to ensure the adequacy of the system. The Maintenance stage of the SDLC has four steps to itself: 1) Obtaining Maintenance Requests, 2) Transforming Requests into Changes, 3) Design Changes, 4) Implement Changes. So from that list of steps with-in maintenance, it looks like this stage is almost its own SDLC. To wrap up, the Maintenance stage can further be broken down into four overarching steps: 1) Planning, 2) Analysis, 3) Design, 4) Implementation. It’s interesting how, once a change request is put into place, maintenance will occur to that individual change. Further more, even with a request as small as a change request, there is still abundant amounts of planning and analysis that occurs to make sure that the IS Auditor gets it right.

Xinye Yang says

April 13, 2019 at 9:02 am

There are several types of maintenance on an information system. Corrective maintenance ,Adaptive maintenance, Adaptive maintenance, and Preventive maintenance. Also. managing maintenance is critical process, As maintenance activities consume more and more of the systems development budget, maintenance management has become increasingly important. Team managers should pay attention to several concerns when they manage maintenance, Managing Maintenance Personnel, Measuring Maintenance Effectiveness, Controlling Maintenance Requests. and Configuration Management. Anyway, Maintenance is the final phase in the SDLC. During maintenance, systems are changed to rectify internal processing errors or to extend the functionality of the system.

Zhu Li says

April 13, 2019 at 10:39 am

To reduce corrective maintenance do a better job in analyzing, designing, coding, and implementing new information systems. There is no better way to reduce the number of repairs to an information system than to do an effective, thorough job in the development process. Usually, the most expensive errors to correct are those that fix incorrect requirements, so doing a thorough job in the analysis both requirements determination and structuring not only reduces the need for corrective maintenance but also provides the extensive documentation that can reduce maintenance time. Also, building systems using common tools and languages makes it easier for a variety of highly trained maintenance personnel to quickly do their job. However, there are some problems requiring corrective maintenance that cannot be avoided or even foreseen. For example, some components purchased and installed from a third party as part of a new information system may later be found to be defective. A “Murphy’s Law” approach would be to do as good a job as possible in designing, coding, and implementing the system, and then be prepared for when the inevitable problems occur.

April 13, 2019 at 10:46 am

The point that I took away from maintaining information systems is Website maintenance. I think the website maintenance is critical for some companies. Website maintenance is performing all the tasks necessary to keep a website up to date and in good, working order so that it works and shows up correctly with the latest web browsers and mobile devices. There are some issues and procedures associated with website maintenance. For example, 24/7/365 is one of them, most websites are never purposely unavailable. Especially for an e-commerce website, if the website becomes unavailable to users, it will lead to a financial and reputational loss. The users might find an alternative website to purchase the goods that they want.

April 13, 2019 at 11:01 am

A final aspect of managing maintenance is configuration management, which is the process of ensuring that only authorized changes are made to a system. Once a system has been implemented and installed, the programming code used to construct the system represents the baseline modules of the system. The baseline modules are the software modules for the most recent version of a system whereby each module has passed the organization’s quality assurance process and documentation standards. A system librarian controls the checking out and checking in of the baseline source code modules. If maintenance personnel are assigned to make changes to a system, they must first check out a copy of the baseline system modules—no one is allowed to directly modify the baseline modules. Only those modules that have been tested and have gone through a formal check-in process can reside in the library. Before any code can be checked back in to the librarian, the code must pass the quality control procedures, testing, and documentation standards established by the organization.

April 13, 2019 at 11:49 am

In the process of maintaining information systems, there are actually four activities that occur within maintenance.

1. Obtaining maintenance requests
2. Transforming requests into changes
3. Designing changes
4. Implementing changes

You obtain maintenance requests when users submit system change requests using an SSR(system service request), to request new development, report problems, oe to request new features in the existing system. Once the request is recieved, an analysis is perfomed to understand the scope of the request and how this request/change will affect the system. When the change request is transformed into a formal design change, it can be fed into the maintenance implementation phase. This maintenance process mirrors the SDLC, and leads back to implementation of the change, and consistently develops with each change request.

Yuqing Tang says

April 13, 2019 at 11:50 am

Chapter 14 mentions about Mean Time Between Failures, which is a reliability index to measure a product. It reflects the time quality of the product, is reflected in the product in the specified time to maintain a function of the ability. Less product Failure means higher reliability, and the ratio between the total number of product failures and the total number of life units is called “Failure rate”. It applies only to repairable products. At the same time, it is also stipulated that the ratio of the cumulative working time and failure times of the product in the total use stage is MTBF. MTBF value is an important parameter to be considered in product design because of its function of using to tracked over time indicate the quality of a system.

April 13, 2019 at 2:29 pm

Maintenance always seems to be the forgotten stage of the process. Everything has already been created and implemented, so you think everything is finished. After lengthy planning, development, and implementation you really just want to be finished with everything so you can move on with your life.

Your client or employees might be satisfied with your application, but it seems as if the users are never satisfied. I don’t think I’ve ever gone through an Instagram or twitter update without seeing hundreds of tweets complaining about the new update. A good application is never truly finished. You always have to keep updating either the functionality or design or adding completely new features.

April 14, 2019 at 11:22 am

Configuration management is an important aspect of maintaining a system. While this was also mentioned in the CISA chapter 3.10 reading, I found that this segment aided in the understanding of the change management process on the developer side. Any type of change must go through a change control group, in this case they mention the system librarian, who is typically either a senior programmer or analyst, in order to prevent any unauthorized changes made to the system. Also, when changes are being made to the system, the person doing so will only have a copy of the system module, rather than making changes directly to the baseline structure, so to ensure that this module has successfully passed through quality control, testing, and documentation procedures before being implemented into the system itself. Having a proper configuration management process helps an organization control the risk of their system failing and having to endure downtime, which usually means an added loss in capital.

Penghui Ai says

April 15, 2019 at 11:03 am

One of my take away for reading: MSAD Chapter 14 “Maintaining Information Systems” is the concept of different types of maintenance. Form the reading, I know that there are 4 different kinds of maintenance, which are corrective maintenance, adaptive maintenance, perfective maintenance, and preventive maintenance. Maintenance is the changes made to a system to fix or enhance its functionality. Corrective maintenance is the changes made to a system to repair flaws in its design, coding, or implementation. Adaptive maintenance is the changes made to a system to evolve its functionality to changing business needs or technologies. Perfective maintenance is the changes made to a system to add new features or to improve performance. Preventive maintenance is the changes made to a system to avoid possible future problems.