Figure 8.  Overview of Web-based data management. The HTTP server and server script application run on the server operating system. The database can reside on the Web server or any other server on the network. The HTTP server communicates with the script application via the application programming interface (API); the server passes on query parameters and receives back data formatted within an HTML document. The script application communicates with the database (eg, Access, Oracle) via Object DataBase Connectivity (ODBC) or Java DataBase Connectivity (JDBC). The script application receives search parameters from the HTTP server, converts them into a proper SQL query, and passes the query to the database. The database returns the query results in SQL, which the script application must format into HTML by means of some predefined template or rules.