Compaq Reliable Transaction Router - Manual (Page 15)

RTR Terminology
Figure 1–2 Server Symbol
Channel RTR expects client and server applications to identify themselves
before they request RTR services. During the identification
process, RTR provides a tag or handle that is used for subsequent
interactions. This tag or handle is called an RTR channel. A
channel is used by client and server applications to exchange
units of work with the help of RTR. An application process can
have one or more client or server channels.
RTR configuration An RTR configuration consists of nodes that run RTR client
and server applications. An RTR configuration can run on
several operating systems including OpenVMS, Tru64 UNIX,
and Windows NT among others (for the full set of supported
operating systems, see the title page of this document, and the
appropriate SPD). Nodes are connected by network links.
Roles A node that runs client applications is called a frontend
(FE), or is said to have the frontend role. A node that runs
server applications is called a backend (BE). Additionally, the
transaction router (TR) contains no application software but
acts as a traffic cop between frontends and backends, routing
transactions to the appropriate destinations. The router also
eliminates any need for frontends and backends to know about
each other in advance. This relieves the application programmer
from the need to be concerned about network configuration
details.
Introduction 1–5