Assuming Software Maintenance of a Large, Embedded Legacy System from the Original Developer

Transferring software maintenance and support for a mission critical system from one organization to another demonstrates the importance of having a complete and accurate documentation and anticipating the potential end-of-life issues for software development tools. The authors present the challenges and lessons learned during the transfer of responsibility for all future software maintenance for a large, real-time, mission critical system from the original developer to an organization that was not involved in the original development or any prior maintenance of the software application.