Software Change Log Analysis for Maintenance Planning

Abstract

Software change log analysis is an important practice for maintenance planning because it provides a historical record of modifications, fixes, enhancements, configuration updates, and release activities. In enterprise software systems, poor analysis of change logs can lead to repeated defects, unclear maintenance priorities, weak impact assessment, undocumented dependencies, and inefficient resource planning. This article discusses how structured change log analysis helps maintenance teams understand change frequency, affected modules, defect patterns, recurring issues, correction effort, and release history. It explains the role of change request records, version notes, defect references, module ownership, impact descriptions, approval details, and rollback information in improving maintenance decisions. The article also highlights common challenges such as incomplete change entries, inconsistent formats, missing root cause details, duplicate records, and poor linkage between changes and requirements. A structured change log analysis approach is presented to support better planning, risk identification, workload estimation, and preventive maintenance. The study concludes that effective change log analysis improves maintenance visibility, reduces repeated failures, and supports sustainable evolution of enterprise software systems.