Software Engineering Terms - M
Sunday, October 2, 2011
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.
