Chapter 18 Maintaining Information Systems 427

Chapter 18

Maintaining Information Systems

True-False Questions

1. / Today more programmers work on maintenance activities than work on new development.
Answer: True Difficulty: Med Reference: p. 615
2. / Overcoming internal processing errors and providing better support for changing business needs are two reasons why systems are maintained.
Answer: True Difficulty: Med Reference: p. 615
3. / Maintenance activities are limited to software changes.
Answer: False Difficulty: Easy Reference: p. 615
4. / Implementation is the last phase of the systems development life cycle.
Answer: False Difficulty: Med Reference: p. 616
5. / The decision to either maintain a system or replace it is often an issue of economics.
Answer: True Difficulty: Med Reference: p. 616
6. / Installation is one of the four major maintenance activities.
Answer: False Difficulty: Med Reference: p. 616
7. / Obtaining maintenance requests, transforming requests into changes, designing changes and implementing changes are the four major maintenance activities.
Answer: True Difficulty: Med Reference: p. 616
8. / Transforming requests into changes is a major maintenance activity.
Answer: True Difficulty: Med Reference: p. 616
9. / Many similarities exist between the SDLC and the activities within the maintenance process.
Answer: True Difficulty: Easy Reference: p. 618
10. / The project identification and planning and analysis SDLC phases are analogous to the maintenance process of transforming requests into changes.
Answer: False Difficulty: Hard Reference: p. 618
11. / The systems analysis SDLC phase is analogous to the maintenance process of obtaining maintenance requests.
Answer: False Difficulty: Hard Reference: p. 618
12. / The systems design SDLC phase is analogous to the maintenance process of designing changes.
Answer: True Difficulty: Easy Reference: p. 618
13. / The systems implementation SDLC phase is analogous to the maintenance process of implementing changes.
Answer: True Difficulty: Med Reference: p. 618
14. / The maintenance phase’s primary deliverables are finalized design specifications.
Answer: False Difficulty: Hard Reference: p. 619
15. / One way to distinguish maintenance from new development is that maintenance reuses most existing system modules in producing the new system version.
Answer: True Difficulty: Med Reference: p. 619
16. / A significant portion of the expenditures for information systems within organizations goes to the maintenance of existing systems.
Answer: True Difficulty: Med Reference: p. 619
17. / Corrective maintenance modifies the system to environmental changes.
Answer: False Difficulty: Med Reference: p. 620
18. / Corrective maintenance repairs design and programming errors.
Answer: True Difficulty: Easy Reference: p. 620
19. / Adaptive maintenance modifies the system to environmental changes.
Answer: True Difficulty: Med Reference: p. 620
20. / Adaptive maintenance evolves the system to solve new problems or take advantage of new opportunities.
Answer: False Difficulty: Hard Reference: p. 620
21. / Perfective maintenance evolves the system to solve new problems or take advantage of new opportunities.
Answer: True Difficulty: Med Reference: p. 620
22. / Preventive maintenance safeguards a system from future problems.
Answer: True Difficulty: Easy Reference: p. 620
23. / Preventive maintenance repairs design and programming errors.
Answer: False Difficulty: Med Reference: p. 620
24. / Adaptive maintenance accounts for as much as 75 percent of all maintenance activity.
Answer: False Difficulty: Med Reference: p. 620
25. / Corrective maintenance focuses on removing defects from an existing system without adding new functionality.
Answer: True Difficulty: Med Reference: p. 620
26. / Adaptive maintenance is a significant part of an organization’s maintenance effort.
Answer: False Difficulty: Med Reference: p. 620
27. / Both perfective and preventive maintenance typically have a much higher priority than corrective maintenance.
Answer: False Difficulty: Hard Reference: p. 620
28. / The number of customers for a given system influences most of the costs associated with maintaining a system.
Answer: False Difficulty: Hard Reference: p. 621
29. / Transitive defects are the number of unknown errors existing in the system after it is installed.
Answer: False Difficulty: Med Reference: p. 621
30. / The number of latent defects in a system influences most of the costs associated with maintaining a system.
Answer: True Difficulty: Med Reference: p. 621
31. / The number of customers for a given system influences maintenance costs.
Answer: True Difficulty: Easy Reference: p. 621
32. / The quality of system documentation influences maintenance costs.
Answer: True Difficulty: Easy Reference: p. 622
33. / Software structure is a cost element of maintenance.
Answer: True Difficulty: Med Reference: p. 622
34. / Management support is one of the major cost elements of maintenance.
Answer: False Difficulty: Med Reference: p. 622
35. / Separate, combined, and functional are types of maintenance organizational structures.
Answer: True Difficulty: Med Reference: p. 623
36. / An advantage of the combined maintenance organizational structure is the formal transfer of systems between groups improving the system and documentation quality.
Answer: False Difficulty: Hard Reference: p. 623
37. / A disadvantage associated with the separate maintenance organizational structure is that documentation and testing thoroughness suffers due to a lack of a formal transfer of responsibility.
Answer: False Difficulty: Hard Reference: p. 623
38. / An advantage to the functional maintenance organizational structure is that the maintenance group knows or has access to all assumptions and decisions behind the system’s original design.
Answer: False Difficulty: Hard Reference: p. 623
39. / It is now common to rotate individuals in and out of maintenance activities.
Answer: True Difficulty: Easy Reference: p. 624
40. / Mean time between failures is a measurement of error occurrences that can be tracked over time to indicate the quality of a system.
Answer: True Difficulty: Med Reference: p. 624
41. / Over time, the MTBF should rapidly decrease after a few months of system use.
Answer: False Difficulty: Hard Reference: p. 624
42. / Managing maintenance requests is a maintenance activity.
Answer: True Difficulty: Easy Reference: p. 625
43. / The queue of maintenance tasks is dynamic.
Answer: True Difficulty: Med Reference: p. 625
44. / Changes to a system are usually implemented in batches.
Answer: True Difficulty: Med Reference: p. 626
45. / Configuration management is the process of assuring that only authorized changes are made to a system.
Answer: True Difficulty: Med Reference: p. 627
46. / Build routines are software modules that have been tested, documented, and approved to be included in the most recently created version of a system.
Answer: False Difficulty: Hard Reference: p. 627
47. / Baseline routines are guidelines that list the instructions to construct an executable system from the baseline source code.
Answer: False Difficulty: Hard Reference: p. 627
48. / A primary objective of using CASE and other automated tools for systems development and maintenance is to change radically how code and documentation are modified and updated.
Answer: True Difficulty: Med Reference: p. 628
49. / Reverse engineering and reengineering tools are primarily used to maintain older systems that have incomplete documentation or that were developed prior to CASE use.
Answer: True Difficulty: Med Reference: p. 628
50. / Locking out the use of pages in a portion of a Website can be done by inserting a “Temporary Out of Service” notice on the main page of the section being maintained and disabling all links within that segment.
Answer: True Difficulty: Med Reference: p. 629

Multiple Choice Questions

51. / The largest systems development expenditure for many organizations is:
a. systems maintenance
b. project planning
c. implementation
d. requirements structuring
Answer: a Difficulty: Med Reference: p. 615
52. / Once an information system is installed, it is essentially in the:
a. implementation phase
b. redesign phase
c. maintenance phase
d. system renewal phase
Answer: c Difficulty: Med Reference: p. 616
53. / The last phase of the systems development life cycle is:
a. operation
b. implementation
c. maintenance
d. analysis
Answer: c Difficulty: Easy Reference: p. 616
54. / Which of the following is a major activity that occurs during maintenance?
a. coding
b. transforming requests into changes
c. conversion
d. training and supporting users
Answer: b Difficulty: Med Reference: p. 616
55. / All of the following are major activities that occur during maintenance except:
a. transforming requests into changes
b. designing changes
c. implementing changes
d. structuring requirements
Answer: d Difficulty: Med Reference: p. 616
56. / Which of the following is a major activity occurring during maintenance?
a. obtaining maintenance requests
b. transforming requests into changes
c. designing changes
d. all of the above
Answer: d Difficulty: Med Reference: p. 616
57. / An SSR or similar document can be used to:
a. request new development
b. report problems
c. request new system features with an existing system
d. all of the above
Answer: d Difficulty: Med Reference: p. 616
58. / The first phase of the SDLC, project identification and selection, is analogous to the maintenance process of:
a. obtaining maintenance requests
b. transforming requests into changes
c. designing changes
d. implementing changes
Answer: a Difficulty: Med Reference: p. 619
59. / The SDLC phases of project initiation and planning and analysis are analogous to the maintenance process of:
a. obtaining maintenance requests
b. transforming requests into changes
c. designing changes
d. implementing changes
Answer: b Difficulty: Med Reference: p. 619
60. / The SDLC design phase is analogous to the maintenance process of:
a. obtaining maintenance requests
b. transforming requests into changes
c. designing changes
d. implementing changes
Answer: c Difficulty: Easy Reference: p. 619
61. / The SDLC phase of implementation is analogous to the maintenance process of:
a. obtaining maintenance requests
b. transforming requests into changes
c. designing changes
d. implementing changes
Answer: d Difficulty: Easy Reference: p. 619
62. / Which of the following best identifies the deliverables for the maintenance phase?
a. The creation of a document that will consolidate the information that must be considered when implementing a physical distributed systems design.
b. The development of a new version of the software and new versions of all design documents that were developed or modified during the maintenance process.
c. Structured descriptions and diagrams that outline the logic contained within each DFD process.
d. Documentation, a user training plan, user training modules, and a user support plan.
Answer: b Difficulty: Med Reference: p. 619
63. / Which of the following types of maintenance accounts for as much as 75 percent of all maintenance activity?
a. preventive maintenance
b. corrective maintenance
c. adaptive maintenance
d. perfective maintenance
Answer: b Difficulty: Med Reference: p. 620
64. / Changes made to a system to fix or enhance its functionality best defines:
a. maintenance
b. support
c. repair
d. installation
Answer: a Difficulty: Med Reference: p. 620
65. / Changes made to a system to repair flaws in its design, coding, or implementation describes:
a. corrective maintenance
b. adaptive maintenance
c. preventive maintenance
d. perfective maintenance
Answer: a Difficulty: Med Reference: p. 620
66. / Which of the following is a type of maintenance?
a. preventive
b. perfective
c. corrective
d. all of the above
Answer: d Difficulty: Easy Reference: p. 620
67. / All of the following are types of maintenance except:
a. supportive maintenance
b. corrective maintenance
c. adaptive maintenance
d. perfective maintenance
Answer: a Difficulty: Med Reference: p. 620
68. / Modifying a system to reflect environmental changes describes:
a. corrective maintenance
b. adaptive maintenance
c. preventive maintenance
d. perfective maintenance
Answer: b Difficulty: Med Reference: p. 620
69. / Evolving the system to solve new problems or take advantage of new opportunities describes:
a. corrective maintenance
b. adaptive maintenance
c. preventive maintenance
d. perfective maintenance
Answer: d Difficulty: Med Reference: p. 620
70. / Changes made to a system to evolve its functionality to changing business needs or technologies best describes:
a. corrective maintenance
b. adaptive maintenance
c. preventive maintenance
d. perfective maintenance
Answer: b Difficulty: Med Reference: p. 620
71. / Changes made to a system to add new features or to improve performance best describes:
a. corrective maintenance
b. adaptive maintenance
c. preventive maintenance
d. perfective maintenance
Answer: d Difficulty: Med Reference: p. 620
72. / Which of the following typically is assigned the highest priority?
a. preventive maintenance
b. perfective maintenance
c. corrective maintenance
d. adaptive maintenance
Answer: c Difficulty: Med Reference: p. 620
73. / Changes made to a system to avoid possible future problems best describes:
a. corrective maintenance
b. adaptive maintenance
c. preventive maintenance
d. perfective maintenance
Answer: c Difficulty: Med Reference: p. 620
74. / Which of the following is felt by many systems professionals to be new development, not maintenance?
a. perfective maintenance
b. preventive maintenance
c. adaptive maintenance
d. corrective maintenance
Answer: a Difficulty: Hard Reference: p. 620
75. / Which of the following is a true statement?
a. In the 1990s, maintenance accounted for 10 - 20 percent of the software budget.
b. In the 1990s, maintenance accounted for 30 - 40 percent of the software budget.
c. In the 1990s, maintenance accounted for 50 - 60 percent of the software budget.
d. In the 1990s, maintenance accounted for 70 - 80 percent of the software budget.
Answer: d Difficulty: Hard Reference: p. 621
76. / Which of the following maintenance cost elements is the most significant?
a. tools
b. software structure
c. personnel
d. customers
Answer: d Difficulty: Med Reference: p. 621
77. / Which of the following influences most of the costs associated with maintaining a system?
a. personnel
b. documentation quality
c. number of latent defects
d. number of customers
Answer: c Difficulty: Med Reference: p. 621
78. / The ease with which software can be understood, corrected, adapted, and enhanced best describes:
a. maintenance
b. maintainability
c. adaptability
d. comfort level
Answer: b Difficulty: Med Reference: p. 621
79. / Which of the following is not a cost element of maintenance?
a. defects
b. documentation
c. personnel
d. time
Answer: d Difficulty: Med Reference: p. 622