The Maintenance subphase

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In the USoft Approach, Maintenance is a subphase of the DELIVER phase.

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The Maintenance subphase of the USoft Approach corresponds to the classic software maintenance tasks that most practitioners are familiar with. These tasks are similar in this respect to the classic project management tasks performed in the PLAN phase (in the Project Definition subphase). For this reason, the Maintenance subphase does not require much discussion here.

After badly conducted releases, the cost of Maintenance can be very high. It is the aim of activities in the DEFINE phase to prepare a clean release. This will result in a decrease of Maintenance overhead.

Tasks in the Maintenance subphase are often performed by a helpdesk. They include:

Handling support calls, reproducing bug reports and interpreting enhancement requests.

Registering all ensuing communication with end users.

Monitoring system use and preventing calamities due to system failure, memory shortage, hacking attempts or problems with installed software.

Optimizing and maintaining the system infrastructure, for example by running a mirrored fail-over system, executing upgrades of installed software, etc.

Facilitating and controlling access by extending licenses, adding or dropping authenticated users, etc.

 

See Also

The DELIVER Phase

The Release subphase

The Acceptance subphase