A client can talk to the X-Machine via HTTP. In the default case, the X-Machine itself does not implement the HTTP protocol. Since high-quality third-party HTTP servers are available, Tamino uses them. Tamino contains a component named X-Port, which is a collection of programs that are installed as interfaces inside web servers. They get control when a request with a URL that is mapped to a Tamino database arrives at the web server. These interface programs forward the request to the target database's X-Machine and send the X-Machine reply back to the client.
The protocol between the client and the web server is HTTP.
Tamino APIs use HTTP to send requests to Tamino via a web server, except of course when using the webserverless API. Using a web server offers the following advantages:
No XTS installation/configuration is needed on the client.
Transparent use of Tamino databases: the client does not need to know whether a requested resource is inside a Tamino database or somewhere else.
The web server's security infrastructure can be used.
The web server's logging infrastructure can be used.
Common firewall setups can be used.
Browsers can be used as clients
A Tamino database does not have a dedicated web server. A web server can talk to any number of databases. Each database can be accessed by any number of web servers.
Tamino's web server interfaces are compatible with all Tamino versions. It is recommended to use the current version of Tamino's web server interface for communication with all Tamino databases.
The web server does not have to be on the same machine as the Tamino database. It may be desirable for performance or availability reasons to use separate machines for the web server and the database server.
The web server does not have to run on the same platform as the Tamino database. The Tamino distribution only includes web server interfaces for the target platform. Interfaces for other platforms are available; please contact your software supplier for details.
Installing Tamino's web server interfaces is straightforward; all you have to do is to ask the web server to load the interface at startup. Configuration is also straightforward: define a mapping from URLs to Tamino databases, so that the web server knows which requests should be handled by the Tamino interface and the Tamino interface knows to which database it should forward the request. Installation and configuration are usually done automatically by the Tamino installation procedure.