IBM BPM, V8.0.1, All platforms > Get started with IBM BPM > Key concepts > Versioning
Naming conventions
A naming convention is used to differentiate the various versions of a process application as it moves through the lifecycle of updating, deploying, co-deploying, undeploying, and archiving.
This section provides you with the conventions used to uniquely identify versions of a process application.
A version context is a combination of acronyms that uniquely describes a process application or toolkit. Each type of acronym has a naming convention. The acronym is limited to a maximum length of seven characters from the [A-Z0-9_] character set, except for the snapshot acronym, which can also include a period.
- The process application acronym is created when the process application is created. It can be a maximum of seven characters in length.
- The snapshot acronym is created automatically when the snapshot is created. It can be a maximum of seven characters in length.
If the snapshot name meets the criteria for a valid snapshot acronym, the snapshot name and acronym will be the same.
When using the mediation flow component version-aware routing function, name your snapshot so that it conforms to the < version>.< release>.< modification> scheme (for example, 1.0.0). Because the snapshot acronym is limited to seven characters, the digit values are limited to a maximum of five total digits (five digits plus two periods). Therefore, care should be taken when the digit fields are incremented, because anything beyond the first seven characters is truncated.
For example, a snapshot name 11.22.33 results in a 11.22.3 snapshot acronym.
- The track acronym is automatically generated from the first character of each word of the track name.
For example, a new track created with the name My New Track would result in an acronym value of MNT.
The default track name and acronym are Main. Deployment to a IBM Process Center server includes the track acronym in the versioning context if the track acronym is not Main.
A business process definition in a process application is typically identified by the process application name acronym, the snapshot acronym, and the name of the business process definition. Choose unique names for your business process definitions whenever possible. When duplicate names exist, you might encounter the following problems:
- You might be unable to expose the business process definitions as web services without some form of mediation.
- You might be unable to invoke a business process definition created in IBM Process Designer from a BPEL process created in IBM Integration Designer.
The version context varies, depending on how the process application is deployed.
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