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Surender reddy SalukutiSurender reddy Salukuti 

about Metadata

Hi everyone,

please tell me what is metadata?


Thank you
surender reddy
9603757105
NagendraNagendra (Salesforce Developers) 
Hi Surender,

In simple terms, metadata is nothing but data about data.

Metadata Definition:- Metadata in Salesforce describes the structure of objects and their fields, as well as the page layouts associated with them. Metadata describes many more structures in Force.com. In this salesforce Tutorial we are going to learn about What is Metadata, what is metadata it’s meaning and definition, metadata API types in Salesforce and how metadata is useful?

Define metadata:- Metadata is a simple lightweight language which based on XML (Extensible Markup Language).  Metadata in Salesforce describes the structure of salesforce.com and Force.com development artifacts. Instead of the traditional development approach of code-compile-package-deploy, with Force.com you only need to code. The magic here is that the metadata is zipped and transferred to the Force.com servers (much faster than uploading compiled code) where it is unzipped and compiled on your behalf. Not only is this super fast, but your changes are immediately available through any web browser, and there’s no downtime at all.

What is metadata used for –  Metadata features and benefits.
  
  • Force.com is a Metadata driven Architecture hence it enable multitenant applications.
  • In Salesforce.com everything is exposed to developers and application users is internally represented as metadata.
  • Metadata is a key ingredient of Force.com applications, the platform’s runtime engine must optimize access to metadata.
  •  Frequent metadata access would prevent the platform from scaling so metadata in Salesforce is used.
  • Force.com uses metadata caches to maintain the most recently used metadata in memory.
  • Metadata avoids performance-sapping disk I/O and code recompilations.
  • Metadata improves application response times.
Hope this helps.

Kindly mark this as solved if the reply was helpful so that it gets removed from the unanswered queue which results in helping others who are facing a similar issue.

Thanks,
Nagendra

 
Deepali KulshresthaDeepali Kulshrestha
Hi Surender,

 Metadata in Salesforce describes the structure of objects and their fields, as well as the page layouts associated with them. Metadata describes many more structures in Force.com.
 
 For more information refer to these links:-
 http://www.crmsalesforcetraining.com/what-is-metadata-in-salesforce-define-metadata/
 https://trailhead.salesforce.com/en/content/learn/modules/salesforce_advantange_how_we_do_it/sa_how_power_of_metadata
 https://developer.salesforce.com/docs/atlas.en-us.api_meta.meta/api_meta/meta_intro.htm

I hope you find the above solution helpful. If it does, please mark as Best Answer to help others too.

Thanks and Regards,
Deepali Kulshrestha
Ajay K DubediAjay K Dubedi
Hi Surender,

Metadata means "data about data". Although the "meta" prefix (from the Greek preposition and prefix μετά-) means "after" or "beyond", it is used to mean "about" in epistemology. Metadata is defined as the data providing information about one or more aspects of the data; it is used to summarize basic information about data which can make tracking and working with specific data easier.
Follow this link for more information:https://dataedo.com/kb/data-glossary/what-is-metadata.

I hope you find the above solution helpful. If it does, please mark as Best Answer to help others too.
Thanks,
Ajay Dubedi