At Fathom, having worked with dozens of clients, building several software applications in many differnet areas, we know very well that in today's organisations, software applications are an indispensable tool, helping to streamline operations and improve productivity. However, to ensure that the software applications continue to meet the changing needs of the business, it is important to have a proper maintenance strategy in place. This is where Fathom can really help!
Here's how :
We help you plan for future changes
When developing custom software, it is essential to plan for future changes and upgrades. This means designing the software in a modular way, so that new features or changes can be easily added without affecting the existing functionality.
Regular Updates and Upgrades
We establish standard operatign procedures to ensure keeping software applications up-to-date. We realize that this is extremely crucial in meeting the needs of the business. This includes regularly updating the software with the latest security patches and bug fixes, determining and managing software deprications as well as upgrading the software to take advantage of new features and improvements.
Monitoring System Performance
Regularly monitoring the performance of custom software helps to identify any issues before they become major problems. This information can be used to make the necessary changes and improvements to the system, improving its performance and reliability.
Maintaining system documentation
This is one of those things like insurance. No one really cares about documentaion (and we are not just talking about code, we are talking about policies, setup procedures, guidelines and more) when things are going on well. How ever, we have seen it several times, that the need for proper documentation always overlaps with a challenging situation. And at a minimum, documentation of software is essential in ensuring that maintenance tasks can be performed quickly and effectively. This includes documentation of the system architecture, code, and database structures, as well as instructions on how to perform specific maintenance tasks. Fathom is well versed in all areas of documentation.
System Availability (Minimal to Zero down time)
This is a very important area that Fathom focusses on during maintenance. We not just do regular functional testing, but also run periodic load tests and regression test to ensuring that not only are software application working but they are working within established response time SLA's.
Better access to support:
Once a technology starts becoming outdated, developers working on the technology often move on to the newer tech. This causes a dwindling of dev resources needed to support applications, and over time becomes a crippling reason to keep applications running.
Maintaining custom software is essential for ensuring that it continues to meet the needs of the business. Planning for future changes, regular updates and upgrades, monitoring system performance, proper documentation, and testing, are some of the best practices that should be followed to ensure the maintenance of custom software. Reach out to us to see how we could help you maintain you software applications.