ABSTRACT
This chapter presents various important aspects of software maintenance and Reliability-centered maintenance (RCM). RCM is a systematic process to determine what has to be accomplished for ensuring that any physical facility is able to continuously satisfy its designed functions in its current operating context. The maintenance of software systems is quite difficult because they are already operational. Therefore, it is necessary to keep proper balance between the need for change and keeping the system accessible for its users. Software configuration management may simply be expressed as a set of tracking and control activities that starts at the beginning of a software development project and stops at the software retirement. There are four major elements of RCM. These elements are reactive maintenance, PM, predictive testing and inspection (PTI), and proactive maintenance. Age exploration(AE) is an important factor in developing an RCM program. AE provides a mechanism for varying key aspects of a maintenance program to optimize the process.
