Glossary - L

a medium for implementing a work product.
See also implementation language, modeling language, and natural language.

a hardware component consisting of a portable notebook-sized computer.

(1) a user-oriented performance quality requirement specifying the maximum time that an application or component shall be allowed to completely execute specific tasks (e.g., perform a major operation or use case path from end to end).

(2) a quantitative quality factor measuring the maximum time that an applicationv or component shall be allowed to completely execute specific tasks.
Contrast with capacity, response time, and throughput.

launch

to deploy an application to its production environment so that it can be used.

launch testing

the testing of the completed system in the production environment during the delivery phase

layer

a major horizontal collection of software components in a layered software architecture. Each layer typically depends only with the layer immediately below it. For example, a software architecture may consist (top to bottom) of the following layers:

User Interface layer
Applications Process layer (transactions).
Business Objects and Rules layer (domain knowledge).
Persistence layer (databases).
Enterprise Application Integration layer (integration with legacy databases and enterprise applications).

Contrast with partition and tier.

legacy content source

an external to the application (but internal to the business enterprise) that is a source of reusable content that can be migrated into a content management system.

library

a hardware component primarily used to store large amounts of data.

life cycle

a cycle consisting of the collection of phases associated with the development and maintenance of a single application.
Contrast with development cycle and delivery cycle.

load balancer

a server computer responsible for allocating requests among multiple servers in order to equalize the loads handled by each server.
For example, F5 Network's BIG-IP Controller and Radware's Web Server Director (WSD).

load testing

the testing of a system that attempts to cause failures involving how the performance of a system varies under normal conditions of utilization (e.g., as the load increases and becomes heavy). Load testing can identify failures involving scalability requirements as well as distribution and load balancing mechanisms in distributed, scalable systems.
Contrast with stress testing.

local area network (LAN)

a network in which all interconnected computers are within the same business or locality (e.g., a college campus).
Contrast with metropolitan area network (MAN), personal area network (PAN), and wide area network (WAN).

logical architecture

the system architecture consisting of the major functions of the system and how they relate to each other.
Contrast with physical architecture.

lowerCASE tool

a Computer-Aided Software Engineering tool that works at the implementation level (e.g., compiler, debugger, code control tool, unit test tool).
Contrast with upperCASE tool.