Chapter 8, Problem 8.1RQ

Program Plan Intro

Define each of the following terms:

a. Application partitioning

b. Application programming interface

c. Client/server system

d. Middleware

e. Stored procedure

f. Three-tier architecture

g. Open database connectivity (ODBC)

h. XML schema

i. Web services

j. XSLT

k. SOAP

Explanation of Solution

Application partitioning

The method of assigning components of application software, after it is written, to client or server partitions in order to gain increased performance and interoperability is termed as application partitioning. Here, interoperability refers to ability to function on different platforms.

Application programming interface (API)

An API is a set of routines, protocols and tools that are used by an application program to interact with other software applications. APIs are used for software development and in context to database APIs are used to connect an application software with the database to access or manipulate data in the database.

Client/server system

It is a networked computing model in which processes are distributed among clients and servers, which provides the needed services. Generally heavy processing application are stored on the server and light application reside at client. Client continuously interact with the server to perform certain tasks. In context of a database system, the database along with the DBMS generally resides on a server and server is responsible for processing the DBMS. End user application system resides on the client which request services from the client.

Middleware

Middleware are software which act as a bridge between application and operating system or between two different applications. They facilitate the user working one application to interact with other software without understanding and coding the low-level routines required to achieve interoperability.

Stored procedure

Stored procedures are predefined set of SQL statements which are provided a unique name and stored in the database schema and can help in execution of redundant tasks without the need of writing the same query again and again.

Three-tier architecture

It is three-layer client/server configuration where one client layer and two server layers are present. This architecture contains one additional server layer as compared to two-tier client/server architecture.

Open database connectivity (ODBC)

It is an API (application programming interface) that helps application programs to access and process SQL database using a common language irrespective of the particular DBMS that is being accessed.

XML schema

XML schema is also commonly known as XSD i.e. XML schema definition. It is W3C recommended language used for defining XML database. It is used to define the elements, attributes and data types of XML database.

Web services

A set of emerging standards with well-defined protocols to facilitate automatic communication among software applications over the Web platforms. These are based on XML and are run in background to for transparent communication among computers.

XSLT

XSLT stands for extensible stylesheet language transformation. It is language used for transforming complex XML documents and along with that used for creating HTML pages from XML documents.

SOAP

SOAP stands for simple object access protocol. It is a communication protocol based on XML which is used for sending messages between application via Internet.