1

Chapter 8 – Software Evolution

CSC577
 2
Topics Covered

 Evolution processes
 Change processes for software systems.
 Software maintenance
 Making changes to operational software systems.
 Legacy system management
 Making decisions about software change.

Chapter 9 Software Evolution

 3
Software Change

 Software change is inevitable:

 New requirements emerge when the software is used.
 The business environment changes.
 Errors must be repaired.
 New computers and equipment are added to the system.
 The performance or reliability of the system may have to be improved.
 A key problem for all organizations is implementing and
managing change to their existing software systems.

Chapter 9 Software Evolution

 4
Importance of Evolution

 Organizations have huge investments in their software systems -

they are critical business assets.
 To maintain the value of these assets to the business, they must be
changed and updated.
 The majority of the software budget in large companies is
devoted to changing and evolving existing software rather than
developing new software.

Chapter 9 Software Evolution

 5
A Spiral Model of Development And
Evolution

Chapter 9 Software Evolution

 6
Evolution And Servicing

Chapter 9 Software Evolution

 7
Evolution And Servicing

 Evolution
 The stage in a software system’s life cycle where it is in operational use and is
evolving as new requirements are proposed and implemented in the system.
 Servicing
 At this stage, the software remains useful but the only changes made are those
required to keep it operational, i.e. bug fixes and changes to reflect changes in
the software’s environment. No new functionality is added.
 Phase-out
 The software may still be used but no further changes are made to it.

Chapter 9 Software Evolution

 8
Evolution Processes

 Software evolution processes depend on

 The type of software being maintained.
 The development processes used.
 The skills and experience of the people involved.
 Proposals for change are the driver for system evolution
 Should be linked with components that are affected by the change, thus
allowing the cost and impact of the change to be estimated.
 Change identification and evolution continues throughout the system
lifetime.

Chapter 9 Software Evolution

 9
Change Identification And Evolution
Processes

Chapter 9 Software Evolution

 10
The Software Evolution Process

Chapter 9 Software Evolution

 11
Change Implementation

Chapter 9 Software Evolution

 12
Change Implementation

 Iteration of the development process where the revisions to the system

are designed, implemented and tested.
 A critical difference is that the first stage of change implementation
may involve program understanding, especially if the original system
developers are not responsible for the change implementation.
 During the program understanding phase, you have to understand
how the program is structured, how it delivers functionality and how
the proposed change might affect the program.

Chapter 9 Software Evolution

 13
Urgent Change Requests

 Urgent changes may have to be implemented without going

through all stages of the software engineering process
 If a serious system fault has to be repaired to allow normal operation to
continue.
 If changes to the system’s environment (e.g., an OS upgrade) have
unexpected effects.
 If there are business changes that require a very rapid response (e.g. the
release of a competing product).

Chapter 9 Software Evolution

 14
The Emergency Repair Process

Chapter 9 Software Evolution

 15
Software Maintenance

 Modifying a program after it has been put into use.

 The term is mostly used for changing custom software. Generic
software products are said to evolve to create new versions.
 Maintenance does not normally involve major changes to the
system’s architecture.
 Changes are implemented by modifying existing components
and adding new components to the system.

Chapter 9 Software Evolution

 16
Types of Maintenance

 Maintenance to repair software faults

 Changing a system to correct deficiencies in the way meets its
requirements.
 Maintenance to adapt software to a different operating
environment
 Changing a system so that it operates in a different environment
(computer, OS, etc.) from its initial implementation.
 Maintenance to add to or modify the system’s functionality
 Modifying the system to satisfy new requirements.
Chapter 9 Software Evolution
 17
Maintenance Effort Distribution

Chapter 9 Software Evolution

 18
Maintenance Costs

 Usually greater than development costs (2* to 100* depending

on the application).
 Affected by both technical and non-technical factors.
 Increases as software is maintained. Maintenance corrupts the
software structure so makes further maintenance more difficult.
 Aging software can have high support costs (e.g., old
languages, compilers etc.).

Chapter 9 Software Evolution

 19
Development And Maintenance Costs

Chapter 9 Software Evolution

 20
Maintenance Cost Factors

 Team stability
 Maintenance costs are reduced if the same staff are involved with them for some time.
 Contractual responsibility
 The developers of a system may have no contractual responsibility for maintenance so
there is no incentive to design for future change.
 Staff skills
 Maintenance staff are often inexperienced and have limited domain knowledge.
 Program age and structure
 As programs age, their structure is degraded and they become harder to understand
and change.

Chapter 9 Software Evolution

 21
Maintenance Prediction

 Maintenance prediction is concerned with assessing which parts

of the system may cause problems and have high maintenance
costs
 Change acceptance depends on the maintainability of the components
affected by the change.
 Implementing changes degrades the system and reduces its
maintainability.
 Maintenance costs depend on the number of changes and costs of
change depend on maintainability.

Chapter 9 Software Evolution

 22
Maintenance Prediction

Chapter 9 Software Evolution

 23
Change Prediction

 Predicting the number of changes requires and understanding of

the relationships between a system and its environment.
 Tightly coupled systems require changes whenever the
environment is changed.
 Factors influencing this relationship are
 Number and complexity of system interfaces.
 Number of inherently volatile system requirements.
 The business processes where the system is used.

Chapter 9 Software Evolution

 24
Complexity Metrics

 Predictions of maintainability can be made by assessing the

complexity of system components.
 Studies have shown that most maintenance effort is spent on a
relatively small number of system components.
 Complexity depends on
 Complexity of control structures.
 Complexity of data structures.
 Object, method (procedure) and module size.

Chapter 9 Software Evolution

 25
Process Metrics

 Process metrics may be used to assess maintainability

 Number of requests for corrective maintenance.
 Average time required for impact analysis.
 Average time taken to implement a change request.
 Number of outstanding change requests.
 If any or all of these is increasing, this may indicate a decline in
maintainability.

Chapter 9 Software Evolution

 26
System Re-engineering

 Re-structuring or re-writing part or all of a legacy system without

changing its functionality.
 Applicable where some but not all sub-systems of a larger system
require frequent maintenance.
 Re-engineering involves adding effort to make them easier to
maintain. The system may be re-structured and re-documented.

Chapter 9 Software Evolution

 27
Advantages of Re-engineering

 Reduced risk
 There is a high risk in new software development. There may be
development problems, staffing problems and specification problems.
 Reduced cost
 The cost of re-engineering is often significantly less than the costs of
developing new software.

Chapter 9 Software Evolution

 28
The Re-engineering Process

Chapter 9 Software Evolution

 29
Re-engineering Process Activities

 Source code translation

 Convert code to a new language.
 Reverse engineering
 Analyze the program to understand it.
 Program structure improvement
 Restructure automatically for understandability.
 Program modularization
 Reorganize the program structure.
 Data reengineering
 Clean-up and restructure system data.
Chapter 9 Software Evolution
 30
Re-engineering Cost Factors

 The quality of the software to be reengineered.

 The tool support available for reengineering.
 The extent of the data conversion which is required.
 The availability of expert staff for reengineering
 This can be a problem with old systems based on technology that is no
longer widely used.

Chapter 9 Software Evolution

 31
Preventive Maintenance By
Refactoring

 Refactoring is the process of making improvements to a program to slow

down degradation through change.
 You can think of refactoring as ‘preventive maintenance’ that reduces the
problems of future change.
 Refactoring involves modifying a program to improve its structure, reduce
its complexity or make it easier to understand.
 When you refactor a program, you should not add functionality but rather
concentrate on program improvement.

Chapter 9 Software Evolution

 32
Refactoring and Re-engineering

 Re-engineering takes place after a system has been maintained

for some time and maintenance costs are increasing. You use
automated tools to process and re-engineer a legacy system to
create a new system that is more maintainable.
 Refactoring is a continuous process of improvement throughout
the development and evolution process. It is intended to avoid
the structure and code degradation that increases the costs
and difficulties of maintaining a system.

Chapter 9 Software evolution

 33
“Bad smells” In Program Code

 Duplicate code
 The same or very similar code may be included at different places in a program. This can
be removed and implemented as a single method or function that is called as required.
 Long methods
 If a method is too long, it should be redesigned as a number of shorter methods.
 Switch (case) statements
 These often involve duplication, where the switch depends on the type of a value. The
switch statements may be scattered around a program. In object-oriented languages,
you can often use polymorphism to achieve the same thing.

Chapter 9 Software Evolution

 34
‘Bad smells’ In Program Code

 Data clumping
 Data clumps occur when the same group of data items (fields in classes,
parameters in methods) re-occur in several places in a program. These can
often be replaced with an object that encapsulates all of the data.
 Speculative generality
 This occurs when developers include generality in a program in case it is
required in the future. This can often simply be removed.

Chapter 9 Software Evolution

 35
Legacy System Management

 Organizations that rely on legacy systems must choose a strategy

for evolving these systems
 Scrap the system completely and modify business processes so that it is
no longer required;
 Continue maintaining the system;
 Transform the system by re-engineering to improve its maintainability;
 Replace the system with a new system.
 The strategy chosen should depend on the system quality and its
business value.

Chapter 9 Software Evolution

 36
An Example of A Legacy System
Assessment

Chapter 9 Software Evolution

 37
Legacy System Categories

 Low quality, low business value

 These systems should be scrapped.
 Low-quality, high-business value
 These make an important business contribution but are expensive to maintain.
Should be re-engineered or replaced if a suitable system is available.
 High-quality, low-business value
 Replace with COTS, scrap completely or maintain.
 High-quality, high business value
 Continue in operation using normal system maintenance.

Chapter 9 Software Evolution

 38
Business Value Assessment

 Assessment should take different viewpoints into account

 System end-users.
 Business customers.
 Line managers.
 IT managers.
 Senior managers.
 Interview different stakeholders and collate results.

Chapter 9 Software Evolution

 39
Issues In Business Value Assessment

 The use of the system

 If systems are only used occasionally or by a small number of people, they may have a low
business value.
 The business processes that are supported
 A system may have a low business value if it forces the use of inefficient business processes.
 System dependability
 If a system is not dependable and the problems directly affect business customers, the system has
a low business value.
 The system outputs
 If the business depends on system outputs, then the system has a high business value.

Chapter 9 Software Evolution

 40
System Quality Assessment

 Business process assessment

 How well does the business process support the current goals of the
business?
 Environment assessment
 How effective is the system’s environment and how expensive is it to
maintain?
 Application assessment
 What is the quality of the application software system?

Chapter 9 Software Evolution

 41
Factors Used In Environment Assessment

Factor Questions
Supplier stability Is the supplier still in existence? Is the supplier financially stable and likely to continue in existence? If the
supplier is no longer in business, does someone else maintain the systems?
Failure rate Does the hardware have a high rate of reported failures? Does the support software crash and force
system restarts?
Age How old is the hardware and software? The older the hardware and support software, the more obsolete it
will be. It may still function correctly but there could be significant economic and business benefits to
moving to a more modern system.
Performance Is the performance of the system adequate? Do performance problems have a significant effect on system
users?
Support requirements What local support is required by the hardware and software? If there are high costs associated with this
support, it may be worth considering system replacement.
Maintenance costs What are the costs of hardware maintenance and support software licences? Older hardware may have
higher maintenance costs than modern systems. Support software may have high annual licensing costs.
Interoperability Are there problems interfacing the system to other systems? Can compilers, for example, be used with
current versions of the operating system? Is hardware emulation required?
Chapter 9 Software Evolution
 42
Factors Used In Application Assessment

Factor Questions
Understandability How difficult is it to understand the source code of the current system? How complex are the control
structures that are used? Do variables have meaningful names that reflect their function?
Documentation What system documentation is available? Is the documentation complete, consistent, and current?
Data Is there an explicit data model for the system? To what extent is data duplicated across files? Is the
data used by the system up to date and consistent?
Performance Is the performance of the application adequate? Do performance problems have a significant effect
on system users?
Programming language Are modern compilers available for the programming language used to develop the system? Is the
programming language still used for new system development?
Configuration management Are all versions of all parts of the system managed by a configuration management system? Is there
an explicit description of the versions of components that are used in the current system?
Test data Does test data for the system exist? Is there a record of regression tests carried out when new
features have been added to the system?
Personnel skills Are there people available who have the skills to maintain the application? Are there people available
who have experience with the system?
Chapter 9 Software Evolution
 43
System Measurement

 You may collect quantitative data to make an assessment

of the quality of the application system
 The number of system change requests.
 The number of different user interfaces used by the system.
 The volume of data used by the system.

Chapter 9 Software Evolution

 44

Characteristics of Maintainable
Software
 45
Problems of Maintenance

 Maintenance Attributes

 Maintenance Organization

 Respect of Metrics

 Requirements Volatility

Chapter 9 Software Evolution

 46
Maintenance Attributes

 Five factors drive the difficulty of delivering software:

 Product
 Documentation
 End Users
 Process
 Environment

Chapter 9 Software Evolution

 47
Maintenance Attributes

 Important attributes to be considered during software

maintenance:
 Product Age
 Design
 Language
 Current Failure Rate
 Staff Experience

Chapter 9 Software Evolution

 48
Maintenance Organization

 Five factors drive the difficulty of delivering software:

 Input vs. output
 Cycle-time
 Cost/Change
 Schedule
 Flexibility
 Quality

Chapter 9 Software Evolution

 49
Respect of Metrics

 Software maintenance should be measured and managed using

metrics to reach a quality software.
 However, we don't know how to measure maintainability because
it’s a service.
 Approaches were made to get values that can be useful during
maintenance (surveys).

Chapter 9 Software Evolution

 50
Survey

Ex 1 Ex 2 Ex 3

Throughput (Changes Delivered) 209 846 139

Priority Change Response Time (Days) 111 92 108

Economics (K$/Change) 78 116 45

% Releases w/Content Changes (total releases) 33 75 65

% Schedules Met 100 70 24

Customer-Reported Defects per Change Delivered 51 21 4

Chapter 9 Software Evolution 50

 51

Chapter 9 Software Evolution 51

 52
Requirements Volatility

 Requirements are the foundation of the software release

process.
 Changing requirements during the software maintenance process
impacts the cost, schedule, and quality of the resulting product.
 Buildmodel to make planning of customer communications
(predictions).
 A focus is made on non volatile requirements.
 53
Key Points

 Software development and evolution can be thought of as an

integrated, iterative process that can be represented using a spiral
model.
 For custom systems, the costs of software maintenance usually
exceed the software development costs.
 The process of software evolution is driven by requests for changes
and includes change impact analysis, release planning and
change implementation.

Chapter 9 Software Evolution

 54
Key Points

 There are 3 types of software maintenance, namely bug fixing, modifying

software to work in a new environment, and implementing new or
changed requirements.
 Software re-engineering is concerned with re-structuring and re-
documenting software to make it easier to understand and change.
 Refactoring, making program changes that preserve functionality, is a
form of preventative maintenance.
 The business value of a legacy system and the quality of the application
should be assessed to help decide if a system should be replaced,
transformed or maintained.

Chapter 9 Software Evolution