The various parts of the CML application communicate with each other using either built-in Component Object Model (COM) objects that ship with Microsoft systems and applications, or custom COM objects that perform the specialized work needed by the Fitch & Mather Corporate Media Library. At the heart of the application, in the business-services tier, sit Internet Information Server and Active Server Pages, the environment that enables the application's basic functionality — including communicating with both the browser (user-services tier) and the databases (data-services tier).
At the back end, or data-services tier, the application calls Microsoft SQL Server 7.0. SQL Server stores titles and other information in various tables. The application also makes calls into the directory of Microsoft Exchange Server using Active Directory Service Interfaces.