Maintenance is the modification of a software product after delivery to correct faults, improve performance, or other product attributes, or to adapt the product to a new or changing environment. This topic area provides resources relevant to all aspects of software maintenance.

Software Development has many phases. These phases include Requirements Engineering, Architecting, Design, Implementation, Testing, Software Deployment, and Maintenance. Maintenance is the last stage of the software life cycle. After the product has been released, the maintenance phase keeps the software up to date with environment changes and changing user requirements.

There are four types of maintenance according to Lientz and Swanson: corrective, adaptive, perfective, and preventive [1980]. Corrective maintenance deals with the repair of faults or defects found. A defect can result from design errors, logic errors and coding errors (Takang and Grubb [1996]). Design errors occur when, for example, changes made to the software are incorrect, incomplete, wrongly communicated or the change request is misunderstood.

In an effort to find out more about the tools, procedures, and techniques project personnel use in their work, the Computer-Aided Software Engineering (CASE) Environments Project interviewed personnel in eight software maintenance projects within an agency of the U.S. government.

When you subscribe to Esri Software Maintenance, you will receive the newest versions of Esri software upon release and have access to Esri Technical Support. You will always have the latest Esri technology to keep your GIS workflows running smoothly.