The components

A client/server architecture consists of several parts:

• A client:
  • A (graphical) user interface.
  • A DBMS communication package.
  • A network communication package.
  • An operating system.
• A network, which connects the client to the server.
• A server:
  • A package for physically accessing a database, including record locking, read/write, etc.
  • An access control / logging module.
  • An authentication module.
  • A database protocol and code to support it.
  • A network communication package.
  • An operating system.

To implement a client/server database, each of the components above must be implemented; either using existing software or by writing new code. We designed a new client/server system primarily in order to implement our own secure protocol. Accordingly, we wrote our own code to handle the database communication protocol. The other components are off-the-shelf, in order to reduce the programming work.

The following are the components used in our system:

Location Component Technology

Client operating system Win32

network communication package TCP/IP + SSL

client DBMS communication package Our own code

graphical user interface Zinc

Network protocol TCP/IP

Server operating system Linux

network communication package TCP/IP + SSL

database protocol + support code Our own code

authentication module Our own code

access control / logging module Our own code

package for physical DBMS access CodeBase

The architecture is illustrated in Figure 1.

  
Figure 1: System architecture

 
• Client software
• Database and network protocols
• Server software