IBM BPM, V8.0.1, All platforms > Authoring services in Integration Designer > Defining and transforming data > Defining data objects

Artifact evolution for business objects

Artifact evolution is used to introduce new versions of existing artifacts to IBM Integration Designer and is supported for business objects.

A common business integration scenario is the reuse of business logic for evolving data.

For example, you may have a specific business process that has been implemented as a business application within the IBM Integration Designer environment. Business processes are constantly changing in accordance with new business requirements. The business data is provided to the business application as an XML Schema which is the data modeling technology used by IBM Integration Designer. As the business requirements evolve, the XML Schema generation must also change.

Artifact evolution enables the integration of a new version of XML Schema(s) into an existing business application with minimal manual modifications to the dependent artifacts (some manual modification cannot be avoided). Those modifications are a result of the potential introduction of new business objects and new business object fields.

For example, you will need to update the existing business object maps with new transforms associated with the new business object fields. As well, you may need to create new business object maps to provide mapping for the new business objects.

The newly updated XML Schema may introduce both quantitative and qualitative changes to the business object set used by the business application. The following changes may occur:

Artifact evolution provides the means to propagate these changes to all business object dependent artifacts like business object maps, interfaces, interface maps, relationships, and so on.

Defining data objects