You can create an application when you deploy an object to a Data Integration Service, or you can create a new application. When you create a new application, you select objects to include in the application.

You can add objects such as mappings, workflows, data objects, and parameter sets. You cannot add a logical data object directly to an application. However, you can create applications for web services and SQL data services that contain logical data objects.

When you create an application, you can create a full application or an incremental application. A full application is an application that you must redeploy each time that you update the application. An incremental application is an application that you can update by deploying an application patch. A patch can update application objects while other application objects continue running, but the patch might require more time to execute compared to redeploying a full application.

After you create an application, the Developer tool validates the application. The validity of an application depends on the validity of the objects it contains. For example, the configuration of links between objects in a mapping must be valid for the application that contains the mapping to be valid. When an application is not valid, errors appear in the Validation Log view or in an error dialog box.