Maintenance and support is the ongoing work of keeping live software secure, current, and watched: applying updates, monitoring for failures, and responding when something breaks, so that carrying the system does not quietly become an internal team's second job.
Let's TalkKeeping dependencies, platforms, and patches current, which is the unglamorous work that prevents most incidents from happening at all.
Watching the system so problems are found before a customer finds them and reports them for you.
Being the people who pick it up when something breaks, rather than the work landing on whoever happened to touch it last.
Holding the knowledge of how the system fits together, so a handover or a change of staff does not reset everything to zero.
Keeping dependencies and platforms current, which is the unglamorous work that prevents most incidents.
Watching the system so problems are found before a customer finds them for you.
Someone to pick it up when something breaks, so it is not whoever touched it last.
Backups that have actually been restored, because an untested backup is a hope.
Making a system that works properly also feel fast under real load.
Maintaining software is easier when the same team implemented the platform or wrote the application, because nothing has to be reverse engineered first. We do both, which is why our software development and implementation practice treats them as one continuous piece of work rather than two separate engagements.