This brief overview presents a critical assessment of the choice of structural parameters that may be used to describe the degree of local order/disorder in metallic glasses (MGs) and to establish the relationship between the amorphous structure and the properties of an MG. By summarizing our own quantitative analysis of representative MG models

we compare

and relate to one another

several measures of structural disorder in amorphous alloys

including the topology of quasi-equivalent clusters

the concept of free volume

and the atomic-level stresses. The model systems used for demonstrating the correlations are characterized by two different and prototypical types of short-range order (SRO): a Cu

64

Zr

36

MG exhibiting pronounced icosahedral SRO

and a Pd

82

Si

18

MG representative of a metal–metalloid system

with solute-centered tri-capped trigonal prisms as the dominant local motif. Also outlined are some ideas in terms of the relationship between the glass structures and properties

including the challenges in correlating the local structures with the propensity for relaxation and shear

transformations.