In a two-tier environment, the client (e.g., an applet or java application) communicates directly with the database. In this environment the JTurbo driver is loaded and called by the client.

In a three-tier environment, the client (e.g., a browser, applet or java application) communicates with a server which communicates with the database and returns the results to the client. In this environment the JTurbo driver is loaded and called by the server (e.g., a servlet or JSP page).