In UML modeling, an artifact instance is a model element that represents an instantiation, or actual occurrence, of an artifact.
Different instances of an artifact can be deployed on various node instances, and each artifact instance can have separate property values.
An artifact instance typically has a unique name that consists of an underlined concatenation of the instance name, a colon (:), and the artifact type; for example, Artifact3Instance:Artifact3.
As the following figure illustrates, an artifact instance is displayed as a rectangle that contains the name of the artifact instance.
Parent topic: Deployment diagrams