Figure 1. WebMDS Request Flow

In a typical WebMDS transaction, a user uses a web browser to send an HTTP request, including some web form arguments, to a web server / servlet container. The web server invokes the WebMDS servlet, which uses the form arguments to determine what plugins to use to retrieve the requested XML data and the XSLT transform to apply to it. The WebMDS servlet passes arguments to the plugins, which then retrieve the appropriate data and XSLT transform. The WebMDS servlet applies the XSLT transformation to the XML data and returns the result to the web server, which sends it back to the client's web browser.