This illustration shows the OracleAS TopLink components in the development cycle.

The OracleAS TopLink application development process is iterative. It comprises three elements: the development environment, the OracleAS TopLink runtime, and the metadata that ties them together. The OracleAS TopLink development cycle includes the following components: the development component composed of the OracleAS TopLink Foundation Library (which includes the OracleAS TopLink Application Programming Interface (API)), the OracleAS TopLink Mapping Workbench and the OracleAS TopLink Sessions Editor. The development cycle links to OracleAS TopLink metadata which is the bridge between the development of an application and the following component, its deployed runtime. The OracleAS TopLink Foundation Library provides the OracleAS TopLink runtime component. Feeding into both the development and runtime components is the Datasource and persistent entities component.