This is totally me just being naive, I don’t work in the software realm but do have an interest possibly one day, but if we have stuff that’s been able to run (seemingly) successfully for years, or maybe even decade, what maintenance needs to even be done on old programs? Is this simply for people discovering security vulnerabilities and patching them? Is there more to it than that?
In: Technology
(1) All but the simplest software has bugs. AS those bugs are discovered, new versions are released and swapping out the version with a bug for a version without a bug is “maintenance.” Some of these bugs are security vulnerabilities.
(2) Software can also leave files on a computer system that record what the software has done. Those files need to be periodically removed to avoid filing up the computer system and/or store them in an appropriate place.
(3) Over time, databases can end up with a lot of old useless data or get into a state where re-ordering data would make the program run more effectively. Taking care of those problems frequently happens during maintenance.
(4) Some software bugs only show up after the software has been running for a “long enough” time. By restarting the software, you help ensure that those bugs never come up.
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