New application version, naming

[PasiPK]

This is probably a basic question, how should I create a new application version?
Reason for new version is that input file record length became longer.

Say I have now application named ABC and application group ABC.
Application group ABC has field VERSION which is Application IF field.

Should I first rename application ABC to ABC01 and
then create new version with name ABC?
This way load JOBs could still use the old name.

[Justin Derrick]

Hi Pasi.

One of the things I cover in my 'Best Practises' presentation is that Application Groups should ALWAYS be defined as having multiple Applications.  The primary reason for this is "versioning".

For example:

I create an AG today, with a AppID field defined as a small integer.  When I define the primary Application, I give it a value of '1'.  Several days/weeks/months/years later, a change to the input data is made.  Instead of modifying the index parameters, I simply copy the Application, give it the number '2', and modify the indexer parameters.  If I need to keep data loading automatically with arsload, I can rename the PREVIOUS Application to 'App-v1' and the NEW Application to just be 'App' (or whatever the Application name needed to be.)

I know this is a tricky concept -- I hope I've explained it clearly. 

If the current Application Group you're working on isn't configured for multiple Applications, you'll need to change the existing App in place, and maybe comment out the old indexing parameters.  (You should have plenty of space for this -- the indexing parameters can be up to 32 kilobytes in size -- over 32,000 characters!)

Hope this helps!

[PasiPK]

Hi Justin,

your answer was good, just what I was looking for. 

I made a typo in my original post, had "IF" instead of "ID" in the following line:
Application group ABC has field VERSION which is Application ID field.
So the group was enabled for multiple applications, it was migrated from V2.

Thanks a lot!!