Persistent and Nonpersistent Attributes in Maximo

Answer

Persistent and nonpersistent attributes are easiest to think of in this way - the Maximo data dictionary tables contain the definitions for Java objects, not database objects. If an
attribute's value should be saved in a database table, then it is
flagged as persistent=1 and configure creates a column of that name in
the table so that the value in the Java attribute can be saved so that
it "persists". If persistent = 0, then the attribute only exists when
the Java object is instantiated in the JVM's memory.

Nonpersistent attributes are runtime working data, or sometimes data
from a different object which is closely associated with this object and
brought in at runtime for screen display. DESCRIPTION_LONGDESCRIPTION
for example holds the long description text (if any) which is fetched
from that table when the main object is instantiated (or for a new item
being entered, the long desc value which will eventually be saved in the
longdescription table, if one is entered). Nonpersistent attributes can also be used as a processing flag
to determine what actions are to be performed.