Clients connect to a database server, typically using a proprietary library.
The client is normally a special purpose application that has to be downloaded and installed at the end-users site. The client connects, makes several queries, then disconnects. The clients are freely available, and normally already installed at the end-users site. This is the mechanism used by WDB to allow the users to query the databases. Because of the different nature of a WWW connection the WDB system has to be designed differently from a normal database application.