CML Data-Services Tier

The data-services tier consists of a collection of data stores. A data store can be a relational database, data stored on a mainframe or accessed from a bulletin board service or the Internet, or information in a spreadsheet. The data-services tier makes data available to business services.

The Corporate Media Library (CML) application will use two types of data stores: a newly created SQL Server™ 7.0 database for all library information and the existing Fitch & Mather Microsoft® Exchange directory.

The CML database makes use of the following database objects:

• Tables to store all library data. The diagram in the Database Design topic shows all the tables in the CML database.
• Full-text catalog. The CML database full-text catalog is the list of words extracted from data in table columns designated for full-text search. Full-text search is a feature of SQL Server 7.0.
• Stored procedures. The CML application components, residing in the business-services tier, call stored procedures in the CML SQL Server database. The stored procedures reside in the data-services tier.

The Exchange directory provides information such as title, department, and phone number to a SQL Server database table that also contains employee information.