Software Engineering Terms - M

MAINTENANCE

The process of supporting production software to detect and correct faults, optimize

performance, and ensure appropriate availability to end-users.

MASTER TABLE

A table containing data on which detail data in another table depends. Master tables

have a primary key that's matched to a foreign key in a detail table and often have a oneto-

many relationship with detail tables.

MEGABYTE (MB)

Approximately one million bytes. A unit of computer storage capacity.

MEGAHERTZ (MHZ)

A measure of the clock speed of the CPU in a computer. One megahertz equals one

million cycles per second.

METADATA

Data that describes the structure, organization, and/or location of data. In essence,

metadata is "data about data."

METHODOLOGY

A set of processes, procedures, and standards that defines an engineering approach to

the development of a work product.

METRICS

Numeric data representing measurements of business processes or database activity.

MILESTONE

In project management, a scheduled event of significance for which an individual or team

is accountable. Often used to measure progress.

MODEL

An abstract representation that illustrates the components or relationships of a specified

application or module.

MODULE

A functional part of an application that is discrete and identifiable with a specific subject.

MODULE TESTING

The process of testing individual software modules or sets of related modules to verify

the implementation of the software.

MULTIUSER

Concurrent access to a single database by more than one user, usually through the use

of client workstations.