Software Development
Decoding Software Product Architecture: A to Z Guide
With the world moving toward
digitalization, involvement in technology is inevitable. This has led all of us
to a virtual space where software
development goes hand-in-hand with our real life. Look around yourself and
you will realize that you are surrounded by different software, be it your
phone, laptop, wearable fitness band, online music or video streaming app, and
whatnot. It has established its root in every sphere and detail, from high-end
to the daily purpose of our lives.
There is no denying the fact that
the software industry has advanced immensely in the past years but software
developers are still struggling with creating a perfect architecture and
environment. To come up with a platform that addresses all critical problems
and proves to an ideal fit, they must lay a strong and robust foundation. This
foundation includes various factors, such as coordination between architects
and designers, informed decision making, easy codes, and more.
The software architecture has
become more important than ever for any company offering product
engineering services, considering the distributed nature of software
systems and the team working on it.
So, to help you understand this
concept clearly, here is a 101 guide that will take you through software
architecture and everything related to it:
What Is Software Architecture?
When you seek a software development solution, the most critical step is software architecture or framework. It includes several modules required for request processing or business handling. It is clear and robust planning of the entire software before starting the actual development process. It is like a blueprint that the development team prepares based on user expectations. This well-planned structure and design aim to have a shared and clear understanding of the system before initializing the development lifecycle. This makes coding and development easier and hassle-free.
"Software
Architecture refers to the high-level structures of a software system and the
discipline of creating such structures and systems. Each structure comprises
software elements, relations among them, and properties of both elements and
relations."- Wikipedia
Software architecture evolves
continuously, comprising a blended set of technical decisions and patterns. If
developers are familiar with what architecture must be like for software, then
their half the task is done already and they can divert their attention toward
its functionality. It helps in exemplifying the important software features,
such as scalability, performance, manageability, quality, maintenance,
usability, etc. Before we start with any development process or start writing
lines of code, our team methodically thinks through software architecture. The
backend and frontend teams collaborate in the initial development stages to
ensure that the structure is consistent and scalable.
What Are the Different Software Architecture Patterns?
Software architects look for the best way to capture and reuse their knowledge, especially that have proved to be beneficial and successful in the past. So, architectural patterns are proven, reusable, and general structures used by product architecture consulting service providers as a solution to commonly recurring problems. They are similar to software design but with a broader scope. You can define it as a package of design decisions that are put repeatedly into practice. These patterns have well-defined properties and multiple patterns can be used together to optimize code and architecture. We have listed some of these patterns below and described them in detail:
Layered Pattern
We have one of the most common
software architecture patterns to start the list. Also known as the n-tier
software architecture pattern, this is used to structure programs that can be
divided into groups of tasks with each of them at a particular level of
abstraction. Moreover, each layer further provides service to the next or
higher level. A Layered pattern is a standard option for most Java EE
applications, preferred by many developers, architects, and designers for many
business applications or software development.
Four common layers of a
general information system are:
- Presentation layer or UI layer
- Application layer or service
layer
- Business logic layer or domain
layer
- Data access layer or persistence
layer
Usage
- Desktop applications
- E-commerce web applications
Event-Bus Pattern
This is another popular software
architecture pattern used by many IT
consulting companies to deliver effective and successful products to
businesses. It is primarily used for event-based structure and consists of four
major components - event source, event listener, channel, and event bus. Source
publishes a message to a specific channel on the event bus while listeners
subscribe to a particular channel. They are notified of the published messages
to the channel that they have subscribed to before. The pattern allows
different components to interact with each other even when they are not
familiar with each other. A component can send events without knowing who will
pick it and how many will pick it. They can also listen to the event without
knowing who is the sender. This pattern is useful when there is no need for
dependent components. It ensures easy development and splits an app into
various independent parts, helping in Android app development and notification
services.
Usage
- Android development
- Notification services
Microkernel Pattern
It is also known as a plug-in
architecture pattern that is used by software developers to create systems with
interchangeable components. Microkernel pattern is applied to the software
systems that can easily adapt to the changing system requirements and it
separates a minimal functional core from customer-specific parts and extended
functionality. It serves as a plugging socket for extensions and also
coordinates collaboration. It is a natural pattern for product-based app
implementation, a packaged app that is available for download versions as a
third-party product. Many apps consist of a core set of operations that can be
reused in different patterns depending on the data and task. For example, the
development tool Eclipse will open files, edit them, or add notes to them and
start background processors. It does all these jobs with Java code and once the
button is pushed, compiles them and runs them. Basic tasks like displaying and
editing are part of the microkernel.
Usage
- Task and job scheduling
applications
- Workflow applications
- Applications with a clear
division between basic routines and higher-order rules
- Applications that access data
from different sources, transform then, and write to different destinations.
Client-Server Pattern
Client-server is a distributed
app or software structure commonly used for product
engineering solutions. It divides tasks between the service or resource
providers, called servers, and service seekers or requesters, known as clients.
Basically, these are the two components of this pattern - server and client
that interact over a computer network on separate hardware but may reside in the
same system. The former component host runs server programs that share
resources with clients while the latter doesn’t share its resources but
requests the content or functions of the server in software architecture. The
server is further categorized as stateless and stateful. Stateful allows
clients to make composite requests that enable more conversational or
transactional interactions between client and server. It keeps the record of
all the requests made by clients which are called sessions.
Usage
Online applications, such as
email, document sharing, and banking.
Broker Pattern
The broken pattern is used to
structure distributed software architecture with decoupled components that
interact with each other via remote service invocations. It is a component that
assists in enhancing and coordinating communication, such as transmitting
results and sending requests. It has 2 main components, namely server, and
client and also features bridges and proxies. Brokers work as a message-routing
component of the architecture, sending and receiving messages from the client
and the server. The latter publishes its capabilities to broker while the
former requests service and is redirected to a suitable service maintained as
the registry.
Usage
Message broker software, such as
Apache ActiveMQ, Apache Kafka, RabbitMQ, and JBoss Messaging.
Space-based Pattern
This software pattern is
exclusively designed to address and solve the problems related to scalability
and concurrency. It is a useful software architecture solution for applications
with unpredictable and variable concurrent user volumes. To achieve high
scalability, developers remove the central database constraint and use similar
in-memory data grids. Moreover, it avoids functional collapse due to high load
by splitting processing and storage between multiple servers.
Usage
- High-volume data, such as
clickstreams and user logs
- Low-value data that might be lost
occasionally but do not have big consequences
- Social networks
Model View Controller Pattern
The MVC pattern is for
applications that include data model, control information, and presentation. It
separates internal representations of information from how it is presented to
and accepted by users. It conducts operations separately and mainly works for
the app development. Also, it decouples components and adds to efficient code
reuse. The pattern divides interactive applications into three parts:
Model- It is the lowest
level of pattern that consists of core functionality and data. The model
represents JAVA POJO or objects carrying data and is responsible for
maintaining them. It is pure application data but plays no role in describing
how it must be presented to a user.
View- As the name
suggests, it is responsible for displaying information or data to users. It can
define more than one view and represents the visualization of data in the
model.
Controller- Its primary
task is to manage all the inputs from users. This software code handles all the
communication between Model and View and controls data flowing into the Model
object and updates the View in case of any data change.
Usage
- Architecture for World Wide Web
applications in major programming languages.
- Web frameworks such as Django and
Rails.
Wrapping It Up!
So, this was everything important
and significant about software architecture. We are sure that the information
helped you understand the concept better and will be useful for making an
informed decision while seeking software product development service.
If you are looking for reliable
and trusted IT consulting
services for your business software or application, then rest your search
here at A3logics. We are a team of experienced and professional developers and
designers working passionately to deliver successful projects. Connect with us
for more details about software solutions and we will help you in the best
possible way.
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