Terms and Explanation Models + ax 2012

Terms and Explanations for each term.

Term	Definition
Metadata	Information about the properties or structure of data in the Application Object Tree (AOT) that is not part of the data values. Everything in the AOT is metadata.
Application layer	A single layer of the Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 application within a model store. Elements in higher layers override elements in lower layers.
Model	A named set of elements in a given application layer. Each layer consists of one or more models, of which one is a system-generated layer model.
Model element	A single piece of metadata. For instance, a table definition is a model element. Any one element in a layer belongs to exactly one model; that is, no element can belong to two different models nor can it belong to any model.
Model file (.axmodel)	A model that has been exported from a model store. This file is the chief vehicle of metadata deployment in Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012.
Model store file (.axmodelstore)	A complete model store that has been exported from the database. The file includes all metadata, compiled artifacts, CIL code, and security artifacts. The file is used for moving consistent metadata between environments with minimum downtime.
Model store	A collection of tables in the Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 database that house the application metadata. The model store is analogous to the AOD file share in Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009.
Generated data	Data that is generated by Microsoft Dynamics AX during development.
Transactional data	Data that describes business transactions and the state of the business.
Configuration data	Data concerning how Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 is configured. This data includes the following subcategories: Environment: Computer-environment–specific data. An example of environment data is the list of servers running Microsoft SQL Server® Reporting Services that Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 is configured to use. If this data is moved, it needs to be corrected to account for new server locations. System: Parameter settings for the Application Object Server (AOS) such as which database to connect to, or for Enterprise Portal forms. Application: Number sequences, invoicing profiles, or other data that relates directly to the application.
Reference data	Data that is characterized by shared read operations and infrequent changes. Examples of reference data include flight schedules and product catalogs. Windows Server® AppFabric offers the local cache feature for storing this type of data.
Master data	The critical data of a business, such as customer, product, location, employee, and asset. Master data falls generally into four groupings: people, things, places, and concepts. It also can be further categorized. For example, within people, there are customer, employee, and salesperson categories. Within things, there are product, part, store, and asset categories. Within concepts, there are categories like contract, warrantee, and licenses. Finally, within places, there are office location and geographic division categories.
Definition group	A collection of tables that defines what will be exported by using the data export feature.
Common Intermediate Language (CIL)	The Common Intermediate Language instruction set is part of the specification of the Common Language Infrastructure from Microsoft and is more widely known as .NET. An older name for CIL was Microsoft intermediate language (MSIL).