Abstract
The success of any software system is mainly depending on its flexible architecture and goals it will achieve for the end user. Different changes need to be brought in to the software due to the growing demand of hardware and software industry. Good software needs to incorporate these changes easily. Various researches have shown that the cost of the software maintenance is much higher than the cost of the software development. In the past the maintenance activity was supposed to be started once the software is delivered, but it's no more the same. The focus on software change is started along the system development life cycle initial stages. This is enhancing our emphasis on system maintainability. In order to optimize the quality of the software maintenance in a rapidly changing environment, study of its ripple effect is very significant. In this paper, a methodology for architecture based quality maintenance ripple effect determination and analysis is proposed. The methodology is illustrated and evaluated using mobile cash application architecture.