Microsoft Word Hardware Reconfiguration Methodology V final2

Long-term

The final type of maintenance to examine is manual system maintenance. This form of maintenance is generally suitable for either long-term system maintenance (i.e. may occur after 10 to 15 years of continuous maintenance) or when one or more of several possible events has occurred. The most likely events to occur are:

1. 
   The distribution’s maintainer has gone out of business.
   

2. 
   The maintainer has been bought out by another company that either does not support or sell Linux-based products.
   

3. 
   The maintainer no longer supports Linux as it has changed its line of business.
   

4. 
   Alternatively, if an organization can no longer benefit from the use of successive upgrades and updates as too of them has rendered key applications and libraries non-functional.
   

On the hand, manual system maintenance may be required as a permanent solution after many upgrades and updates as the time required to fix the problems caused by them is equal to or greater than the amount of time necessary to manually maintain the system.

Manual system maintenance can be used at any time during an operating system’s lifecycle in order to continue supporting and maintaining it and its applications and libraries; however, this is not advisable as it only be used when necessary. It is almost never used after the initial deployment of the C2 system as updates can generally fulfill its role. It is only after many years and too many system changes that it should be seriously considered. However, this is not to say that every software package must be manually recompiled and reinstalled. Rather, manual system maintenance can be the manual and direct application of updates and upgrades without using any GUI installation program. Instead, the system administrator becomes responsible for ensuring that required software packages are up to date through whichever means are at his disposal. Equally applicable is the implementation of new or modified source code, recompiling and reinstalling it. In so doing, the system administrator gains additional control over which applications and libraries are changed.

What sets long-term manual system maintenance apart from the other types is that the system maintenance is now almost entirely dependent on the system administrator, the method he chooses (as the situation requires) and his skills and expertise in maintaining the system. In addition, it is very likely that the system administrator will not be able to carryout all the required tasks by himself and will have to work in with other technical support staff. However, in so long as the applications and libraries in use continue to be supported by the vendor manual system maintenance may only required occasionally. Fortunately manual system maintenance is only necessary when applications and/or libraries are no longer functional due to various sources of conflict.

Manual maintenance is unfortunately the longest and most complex form of system maintenance possible and generally requires extensive in-house testing. Sometimes it will require the direct modification of existing source code and at other times the application of patches or simple downloads and installations. Cases will vary widely and many situations are likely to be unique and equally cumbersome and complex to implement. Although long-term manual system maintenance does not necessarily need to be used by the Navy so long as other maintenance options remain open and available to it [2]. It is entirely possible that through highly specific support contracts customized updates and upgrades can be provided from the vendor that will be able to adequately satisfy the Navy’s long-term requirements. However, as is the case with business things change and without at least giving this option due consideration the Navy may find itself without any other viable option other than to deploy a completely new operating system from scratch instead of building upon and reusing available resources.

5.