Software AG’s Tamino is a novel database server designed to fit the needs of electronic business and worldwide information exchange via the Internet. It is not just an on-top solution based on a database system originally designed for use in other application areas. Rather, it is entirely designed for the specific scenario of HTTP-based access to data represented in XML. These data can stem from various sources, and can be combined on the fly when a corresponding request is encountered. This paper sketches the architecture and the functional features of Tamino, and justifies its various design decisions.