Layered architecture: What it is and how it can help you create applications?

What is web application architecture?

Application architecture is the representation of how different services and systems are joined together. It helps us to understand how applications or services are placed in a layered architecture, who are the different actors at each layer and what is the fundamental role of each layer.

It determines application components and different layers communicate with each other. These architectures are layered having different layers from the design or presentation layer to the data layer. Software architects or Web engineers ensure that all the elements or layers work together correctly.

How does system architecture for web application works?

In web application architecture, there are basically two parts working simultaneously, the client (frontend) and server (backend). The client represents the application UI on the browser from where the web server takes the request to the server, where the server has the code that responds to requests coming from the client. The Server manages the application logic and responds to HTTP requests.

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Models of web architecture

One-tier architecture

One-tier architecture involves putting all of the required components for a software application or technology on a single server or platform. This kind of architecture is often contrasted with multi-tiered architecture or the three-tier architecture that's used for some Web applications and other technologies where various presentation, business, and data access layers are housed separately.

Two-tier architecture

The Two-tier architecture is divided into two parts: Client Application (Client-side) and Database (Server-side) respectively.

Also called a client-server application, the communication in this architecture takes place between the client (browser) and the server. The client system will send the request to the server system which will process it and send back the data to the client side.

Multiple-tier architecture

A Multi-tier Architecture is a software architecture in which different software components, arranged in tiers (layers), offer dedicated functionality. The most common example of multi-tier architecture is a three-tier system comprising a data management tier (encompassing one or several database servers), a client tier (interface functionality), and an application tier (business logic).

Microservices architecture

You might have heard of the word microservices if you’re a tech enthusiast. Microservices are independent services like applications, which exist completely on their own. These come with their logic, state, and deployment and interact with each other via API calls, queues, etc. depending on the requirements. These microservices combine to deliver the complete application solution.

With microservices architectures, applications are easier to scale and faster to develop allowing businesses to accelerate innovation and time-to-market for new features.

Layers and Components of Application Architecture

The application architecture is made up of several layers: design layer, frontend layer (HTML and CSS), backend or data layer (database and scripting languages), platform (browser/OS), and business layer. These layers are built on top of each other and depend on each other to create a successful project.

Presentation Layer

This layer represents the design and UI components on the client side. Users interact with this layer to send requests through the application layer to the server. It displays the data flow for the users. The main purpose of this layer is to take data from users and show the response from the server (data layer).

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Application Layer

The application layer consists of an API gateway. Front-end developers write code to pass the data from the presentation layer to the business logic layer where it is processed. Data will pass to APIs and get stored in the database, depending on the feature it is utilized in the business layer for application logic and to perform certain actions.

Business Layer

This layer has all implementation of application logic. Data from the application layer gets utilized here for example in a lead generation application a form is submitted in the presentation layer and data travels through APIs and is then used to send out emails or to perform any action on the lead before getting stored in the database.

Data or Backend Layer

All the data gets stored in the database and retrieved from it to use on the front end (client-side). Data travels from the database through APIs, from the application layer in creating modules or components that are converted to UI and the user then interacts with that in the presentation layer.

Conclusion:

To conclude, there are different ways to set up the architecture for applications software. Microservices architecture is the most popular choice of mid-sized and large companies like Amazon and Google. However, in order to find out more about which architecture to go with for building your project we recommend you reach out to any professional web development team that can guide you according to your needs and goals.

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