Criteria for software maintainability

Because software performance affects the system ram performance requirements, software must be addressed in the overall ram requirements for the system. Criteria based assessment mike jackson, steve crouch and rob baxter criteria based assessment is a quantitative assessment of the software in terms of sustainability, maintainability, and usability. Criteriabased assessment mike jackson, steve crouch and rob baxter criteriabased assessment is a quantitative assessment of the software in terms of sustainability, maintainability, and usability. Software quality is the result of the user experience.

Nonfunctional requirements maintainability nonfunctional requirements maintainability. If you build a valuable product that works perfectly but is difficult to modify and adapt to new requirements, it will not survive in todays. These changes may be necessary for the correction of faults, adaptation of the system to a meet a new requirement, addition of new functionality, removal of existing functionality or corrected when errors or deficiencies occur and can be perfected, adapted or action taken to reduce further. Software maintainability is the degree of an application to repaired or enhanced it. Developing maintainable software helps reduce technical debt. Reliability, availability, and maintainability ram are three system attributes that are of tremendous interest to systems engineers, logisticians, and users. Mission objectives include safety, mission success and sustainability criteria. Also refers to the action of detecting and isolating failures or faults. The paper presents a model for estimating the maintenance value for any project developed in agile environment, as maintainability of the software product plays a vital role for defining quality of the product. Why we dont use the software maintainability index. The maintainability index is computed by combining four traditional metrics. Several models of software quality factors and their categorization have been suggested over the years. In other software quality models this characteristic is referenced as supportability.

Maintainability is a multifaceted quality attribute each of the facets must be analyzed to objectively measure it. Back to solutions software analysis based on international standards. Therefore, with a set of software design criteria for maintainability, software is believed to be more maintainable. Software functional quality reflects how well it complies with or conforms to a given design, based on functional requirements or specifications.

Maintainability is the ease with which a software product can be modified. One of the challenges in applying software test automation successfully in your projects is to select a most appropriate automated testing tool or framework. For example, maintainability but each of the factors is to be measured to check for the content and the quality control. An approach based on maintainability criteria for building aspectoriented software design model. Reliability, availability, maintainability ram study, on. This document is a first step towards the construction of a maintainability prediction model.

Software metrics for predicting maintainability software metrics study. For each measurement area, the threshold measurement values are provided that are required for eligibility of certification at the level of. Real world modelling independence ofspecification modelling which. The 11 factors are grouped into three categories product operation, product revision, and product transition factors. This article includes a list of references, related reading or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations.

They are usually the sum of a set of models describing different aspects of the maintenance process e. Introduction many resources are spent on software maintenance. This is a very important parameter as the system is subjected to changes throughout the software life cycle. Software complexity is widely regarded as an important determinant of software maintenance costs boehm 1981. Among primary maintainability criteria in software development methodology are. Maintainability models describe the time necessary to return a failed repairable system to service. The wear or accumulated stress mechanisms that characterize hardware failures do not cause software failures. Software analysis based on international standards. Measuring software maintainability is nontrivial and there exists no single metric to measure it accurately. The criteria used by these 20% to check for maintainability differed significantly and ranged from objectorientation, cyclomatic complexity 18 limited numbers of lines per method, descriptive identifier naming, down to service oriented architectures or omgs modeldriven architecture. The maintainability of a system can be measured in. Therefore, measurements must be used to measure software quality, e. Restructuring the data and code of the software are implemented in preventive maintenance.

Maintainability design checklist the following is a maintainability design checklist for coal mining equipment. The standard definition of reliability is the probability of zero. The criteria used by these 20% to check for maintainability differed significantly and ranged from objectorientation, cyclomatic. Approximately 75 percent of the cost is related to software maintenance. During the system development life cycle sdlc this phase requires more development effort than any other phase. Nevertheless, many criteria are likely to be stable for quite some time. This model classifies all software requirements into 11 software quality factors. Keywords software metrics, halstead measure, maintainability, modifiability, software architecture, software deterioration. Maintainability assessment for software by using a hybrid fuzzy multi criteria analysis approach. What characteristics or features make code maintainable. Collectively, they affect economic lifecycle costs of a system and its utility. Assessing software system maintainability using structural.

Ajay rana abstract a large number of software products enter the maintenance phase due to the growing application of information systems. The focus of this study is to evaluate software maintainability. Software product quality is a major concern for those that develop, maintain, enhance, acquire, or use software products or softwareintensive systems. Introduction and evaluation of maintainability of an. The software maintainability index mi is a singlevalue indicator for the maintainability of a software system. Aqclab maintainability evaluation and certification. Cqse blog why we dont use the software maintainability. An entity with relatively low costs in these areas is considered maintainable whereas an entity with high costs may be considered unmaintainable or high maintenance. That attribute can also be described as the fitness for purpose of a piece of software or how it compares to competitors in the marketplace as a worthwhile product. The hardware, software, or other documented means used to determine that a malfunction has occurred and to isolate the cause of the malfunction. For determining the weight values for each selected maintainability criteria, swara a decision making approach is used.

Software design criteria for maintainability mafiadoc. What is more, the software complexity of a given system is one of the main longterm. Software quality is built from the ground up, with design and development methodologies, and with a special focus on testability, coverage, and flexibility. Fuzzy layered approach for maintainability evaluation of object oriented software system neha goel, sanjay kumar dubey, prof. Pdf an approach based on maintainability criteria for building. A factor is a toplevel expression of software status for management reporting. One of the exit criteria of the engineering, manufacturing and development emd phase is demonstrating reliability, availability, maintainability, and sustainment features are included in the design of a system. Maintainability is defined as the probability of performing a successful repair action within a given time.

Aqclab maintainability evaluation and certification iso. Maintainability means fixing, updating, servicing and to modify the system or update the software for performance improvements or for the correction of faults. A measure of effort must include time, resources and expertise. The maintainability testing shall be specified in terms of the effort required to effect a change under each of the following four categories. Increased software complexity means that maintenance and enhancement projects will take longer, will cost more, and will result in more errors. Nonfunctional requirement examples requirements quest. We evaluated each metric according to the following list of criteria derived from bbkl78 and. We argue that the existing software design methodologies are not properly developed based on criteria for easy software maintenance at later stages. The value transformation staff have experience using scrum for embedded software projects as well as adaptations to the line management with great increases in efficacy. What one person considers maintainable may be very different to anothers view in some respects but some qualities i think it should include are. It identifies a set of software measures based on correlations published in empirical studies. Reducing the software development and maintenance costs is the main objective of objectoriented design. It specifically focuses on the identification of equipment design. Maintainability how easily faults in the software system can be found and fixed.

Its objectives are to define the concept of maintainability, to describe the factors influencing it and to define criteria by which maintainability can be quantitatively evaluated. Reliasoft offers software blocksim and training that address. Software design for maintainability establish design criteria for maintainable software products to increase system availability and decrease overall development and operating costs benefits by designing software products that are maintainable we can update and enhance fielded software much faster and at lower cost. This maintenance acts as medicine to prevent the problems. Maintainability assessment for software by using a hybrid fuzzy multicriteria analysis approach. Maintainability is defined as the ease with which changes can be made to a software system.

The ease with which maintenance of a functional unit can be performed in accordance with prescribed requirements. Software design criteria for maintainability modelling activities, simplicity of use this reduces training requirements and comprehensive supporting tools for example, uk government has adopted ssadm as a standard method for all it projects. The software metrics study was initiated to propose metrics of the maintainability of the software produced by the mdsf project. Criteria and guidelines to improve software maintainability in.

Scalability how well the software system is able to expand its processing capabilities upward and outward to support business growth. For manufacturing entities, many of the maintainability requirements are born out, at least in part, by the manufacturing and assembly environment of the customer organization. Addition of new functionality or the adaptation of software to meet new requirements for the customer needs. A definition of maintainability with a few examples. Additionally, the ram attributes impact the ability to perform the intended mission and affect overall mission success. This definition implies that software maintainability depends on various. Reliability, availability, and maintainability sebok.

Software that is written without maintainability in mind requires about four times as much effort to maintain than it did to develop. Developing maintainable software software sustainability. Maintainability maintenance is the activity of modifying a software product after initial. Specific software ram tools can also be used as process reliability modelling, plant wide. It was proposed by oman and hagemeister in the early nineties 1. Maintainability and reliability work together is developing design solutions for a system. It is a challenging decision as you have many tools to choose from and a number of requirements to satisfy, and automated testing tools may have hidden problems you dont see or overlook at the time of making decision.

Please help to improve this article by introducing more precise citations. Measuring software maintainability is nontrivial as there is no single metric to state if one application is more maintainable than the other and there is no single tool that can analyze your code repository and provide you with an accurate answer either. Software quality is built from the ground up, with design and development methodologies, and with a special focus on testability, coverage, and. Maintainability is the most demanded characteristic nowadays by software clients that look for maintainable software that can be adapted to meet changes in business needs in an easy and simple way. The classic model of software quality factors, suggested by mccall, consists of 11 factors mccall et al. Maintainability are the relative costs of fixing, updating, extending, operating and servicing an entity over its lifetime.

Materiel systems also include, but are not limited to, standalone or embedded automatic data pro. Thus, producing software that is easy to maintain may potentially save large costs. Modifiability how easily changes to the system can be developed and deployed in an efficient and cost effective manner. We measure and analyze your source code based on isoiec 25010. In software engineering, these activities are known as software maintenance cf. The importance of maintaining software updates the main benefits of maintaining software updates are that security remains on point, usability is firing on all cylinders, and your software is compatible with other all the software you use. Maintainability is impacted by code readability or complexity as well as modularization. Reliability, availability, and maintainability ram or rma are system design attributes that have significant impacts on the sustainment or total life cycle costs lcc of a developed system. In this study, three criteria called reliability, availability and maintainability ram have been employed to compare to future maintenance strategies. The maintainability index is calculated with certain formulae from linesofcode measures, mccabe measures and halstead complexity measures. Correctness, reliability, efficiency, integrity, usability. How to effectively define and measure maintainability. Reliability, availability, maintainability ram study, on reciprocating compressors api 618.

May 20 learn how and when to remove this template message in engineering, maintainability is the ease with which a. Factors maintainability is a component of a more general concept, software quality, which is described in terms of a hierachy see figure 1 em87 of factors, criteria and metrics. Preventive maintenance helps the software to become more scalable, stable, understandable, maintainable. The logical complexity of the source code has a strong correlation to the maintainability of the resultant software 8, 9. Aqclab offers a maintainability evaluation service conforming to isoiec 25000 that provides knowledge on the maintainability of your software. Pdf how to effectively define and measure maintainability. Closely related concepts in the software engineering domain are evolvability, modifiability, technical debt, and code smells. This can inform highlevel decisions on specific areas for software improvement.

Reliability, availability, and maintainability entrance criteria for test events 5. Software maintainability is defined in the ieee standard glossary of software engineering terminology as the ease with which a software system or component can be modified to correct faults, improve performance or other attributes, or adapt to a changed environment. Reliability and maintainability definitions rmqsi knowledge. A short, nonexhaustive list of the areas upon which. One example is software maintainability, which has been the subject of considerable research and is believed to be a critical determinant. Maintainability is a requirement of the cei and swci specifications. But software quality should not and cannot be a reactive action to external defects. Maintainability assessment for software by using a hybrid. In general any software development manager is familiar with this definition of effort as it applies to creating software. Materiel systems also include, but are not limited to. With maintainable software, it is easy to modify parts of the software, meet user or customer requirements in a shorter time and manage the software efficiently. Its objectives are to define the concept of maintainability, to describe the factors influencing it and to define criteria by which maintainability can be quantitatively.

Citeseerx document details isaac councill, lee giles, pradeep teregowda. Fuzzy layered approach for maintainability evaluation of. Maintainability the ability to identify and fix a fault within a software component is what the maintainability characteristic addresses. Maintainability maintenance is the activity of modifying a software product after initial delivery. For this reason, many applications are replaced simply because the overhead to modify them becomes prohibitive. Reliasoft offers software blocksim and training that address the topic of system maintainability analysis. Maintainability is the measure of ability to successfully repair or fix the product after manufacturing, usually in the field, and over time. Reliability, availability, and maintainability the mitre.