Digital Asset Management, 2nd Edition

12 The Application Server

Introduction

A small-scale asset-management application can be designed using the client–server model. Each client includes the presentation and business logic. The server is essentially a database. All interprocess communication between clients takes place via the database using triggers and stored procedures. Although some simple and elegant systems based on this architecture are in use today, such systems do not offer the performance and scalability of a multitiered architecture. The limit comes at around 100 clients. At this point, the number of database connections leads to queuing and inefficiency. The other drawback is that any changes to the application logic entail updates to every client.

In Figure 12.1, if ...