Over time the Application Server Database will be deployed in different versions. The database structure including tables, relations, stored procedures etc will differ between different versions.

To distinguish between different versions of the Application Server Databases each version has a unique version number.  Version numbers consist of two components: major and minor. All components are be integers greater than or equal to 0. The format of the version number is as follows:

<major version>.<minor version>.<build number>.<revision>

The components are used by convention as follows:

•Major: Application Server Databases with different major versions are not interchangeable. A higher version number indicates a major structure change in the databases where backward compatibility cannot be assumed.

•Minor: If the major version number on two Application Server Database versions are the same, but the minor version number is different, this indicates significant enhancement with the intention of backward compatibility. This higher minor version number might indicate a point release of the product or a fully backward-compatible new version of the product.

•Build: A difference in build number indicates a new version with no significant new features implemented, however a few small improvements may be included. A change in the build number does not break compatibility with an already installed Application Server.

•Revision: A difference in revision number indicates a new version with small changes e.g. bug fixes. A change in the build number does not break compatibility with an already installed Application Server.

Whenever the Application Server starts up it will check the Version of the database, see Application Server versioning for details.