Software maintenance practices using agile methods towards cloud environment: A systematic mapping

Agile methods have emerged to overcome the obstacles of structured methodologies, such as the waterfall, prototype, spiral, and so on. There are studies showing the usefulness of agile approaches in software development. However, studies on Agile maintenance are very limited in number. Regardless of the chosen methodology, software maintenance can be carried out in either a local (on-the-premise) or global (distributed) environment. In a local environment, the software maintenance team is co-located on the same premises, while in a global environment, the team is geographically dispersed from the customer. The main objective of this Systematic Mapping (SM) study is to identify the practices useful for software maintenance using the Agile approaches in the Cloud environment. We have conducted a comprehensive search in well-known digital databases and examined the articles that map to the pre-defined inclusion criteria. The study selected and analyzed 48 articles out of 320 published between 2000 and 2022. The findings of the mapping study reveal that Agile can resolve the major issues faced in traditional software maintenance, making the role of this approach significant in global/distributed software maintenance. Cloud computing plays a vital role in software maintenance. Most of the studies highlight the application of XP- and Scrum-based Agile maintenance models. The study found a need for more Agile maintenance solutions in the cloud, highlighting the importance of agile in software maintenance, both locally and globally. Irrespective of the environment, Cloud computing provides a centralized platform for collaboration and communication, while also offering scalability and flexibility to adapt to diverse infrastructure needs. This allows agile maintenance practices to be implemented across both local and global environments, leveraging the cloud's capabilities to overcome geographical and infrastructural challenges.