An application written in the Java programming language uses the JDBC
DriverManager class API to access a driver based on JDBC technology
("JDBC driver"). There are various JDBC driver alternatives. A JDBC-Net
driver connects to a middle tier server and translates JDBC calls into a
DBMS-independent net protocol.  The server then translates this to a DBMS
protocol.  Other driver implementations access a DBMS directly using
proprietary database access protocols.