The database server provides the central location and storage of the data. This allows many users, or clients, to access this common pool of information. A robust database server, like Interbase, will also provide server based programs and functionality. These server side programs can act directly on the data without sending information across the network to the client. This allows calculation intensive procedures to occur only on the server.
Most network servers are much more powerful and efficient then the clients within the network.
Therefore, this speed and power can be exploited directly without increasing the network traffic or relying on a slower client to perform the task. The database client is a program that runs on a computer workstation, otherwise known as simply the client. The client provides a user interface and access to the networked database server and its corresponding data. In other words, the client is the program, and its associated computer, where the user enters and accesses the data. This allows the slower, less intense, calculations to be performed on the slower client computers within the network.