2 OracleAS TopLink Architectures

This chapter presents an overview of five common enterprise architectures. Each architecture leverages Oracle Application Server TopLink to manage object persistence. The descriptions in this chapter include common usages for each of the architectures, as well as discussions about the technical challenges each architecture presents. Where appropriate, the sections refer to related technical information later in this document.

OracleAS TopLink supports any enterprise architecture that makes use of Java. This chapter focuses on the flexible architecture support of OracleAS TopLink, which includes:

• Java application servers and J2EE containers

• Java-supporting databases, such as Oracle9i Database Server and IBM DB2 UDB

• Java-compatible browsers, such as Netscape and Internet Explorer

• Server Java platforms, such as AS/400, OS/390, and UNIX

OracleAS TopLink offers you the flexibility you need to choose your database, architecture, mapping strategy, application server and object-relational modeling. This chapter includes sections on:

• How to Use This Chapter

• Architectural Concepts

• Five Key Architectures

• Architecture Details