There are two ways to use the SDK in a target application.
In a local standard Windows application (for example, based on standard Windows Forms). The CardDesigner administrates card types consisting of layouts and encoding descriptions. It is also used to design the layouts. All data is stored locally. Production is done by creating a card job which contains a reference to a card type defined by the CardDesigner. The card job contains all variable text and image data. As all cards in this architecture are managed by the CardDesigner, the SDK's usage in this architecture is named Managed mode.
In a Client-server architecture (for example, based on ASP.NET, J2EE or any HTML server). The administration of card types is done by your application using the CardDesigner/EncodingConfigurator or CardComposer. The CardDesigner is only used to design the layouts. No data is stored locally. Your application has to store and manage card types itself. Production is done by creating a card job with layout data, encoding description data, variable text and image data. In this mode, called Non managed mode, no local files are referenced - all data is exchanged between your application and the components.