You can use SQL Anywhere as a database server or resource manager, participating in distributed transactions coordinated by a transaction server.

A three-tier environment, where an application server sits between client applications and a set of resource managers, is a common distributed-transaction environment. Sybase EAServer and some other application servers are also transaction servers.

Sybase EAServer and Microsoft Transaction Server both use the Microsoft Distributed Transaction Coordinator (DTC) to coordinate transactions. SQL Anywhere provides support for distributed transactions controlled by the DTC service, so you can use SQL Anywhere with either of these application servers, or any other product based on the DTC model.

When integrating SQL Anywhere into a three-tier environment, most of the work needs to be done from the Application Server. This chapter provides an introduction to the concepts and architecture of three-tier computing, and an overview of relevant SQL Anywhere features. It does not describe how to configure your Application Server to work with SQL Anywhere. For more information, see your Application Server documentation.