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# Server and Client Sessions

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A server session manages the server side of client/server communications, providing shared resources, including a shared object cache and connection pools to a single data source.

A client session is a client-side communications mechanism that works together with the server session to provide the client/server connection. You acquire client sessions from a server session at run time as required. By default, a client session shares the session cache of its parent server session. Each client session serves one client. A client session communicates with the server session on behalf of the client application.

Each client session can have only one associated server session, but a server session can support any number of client sessions.

As Figure: Typical TopLink Server Session with Client Session Architecture illustrates, together, the client session and server session provide a three-tier architecture that you can scale easily, by adding more client sessions. A server session is the most common TopLink session type because it supports this three-tier architecture that is common in enterprise applications. Because of this scalability, Oracle recommends that you use the three-tier architecture to build your TopLink applications.

Typical TopLink Server Session with Client Session Architecture

This section explains the advantages of using server sessions and client sessions in your TopLink application, including the following:

- Three-Tier Architecture Overview

- Advantages of the TopLink Three-Tier Architecture

For more information, see the following:

- "Creating a Server Session"

- "Configuring Server Sessions"

- "Acquiring a Session From the Session Manager"

- "Acquiring a Client Session"