Why do internet/ online servers need maintenance ?
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The most obvious one is patching. You can apply OS-level patches that either improve performance or fix software vulnerabilities. Sometimes you can forego the performance ones, but the security ones tend to be required sooner rather than later. Having unpatched security issues is like leaving the front door unlocked and hoping nobody tries to walk in.
Another reason is physical real-world logistics. For example, many companies had to move servers out of data centers in the UK and into mainland Europe after Brexit in order to comply with having data stored in the EU. This could also be simpler stuff, such as consolidating rack space in a data center (if you were to downsize how many racks you had, or had to move servers around for cooling reasons or to make more efficient use of space).
Another common reason is that many servers are Virtual Machines these days, and the Virtual Machine Host needs similar maintenance. The VMs can sometimes be seamlessly moved to another device, but not always.
The last one is software updates. This can be a major one, especially because many pieces of software don’t play nicely while updating. For example, if you wanted to update database software, the database likely needs to be brought offline, which means the application pointing to it also needs to be brought offline. Only after the new database version is up and running can you bring the software that uses it up.
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