Software architecture patterns are very important because they can be applied to a variety of issues. Select the category of software architecture patterns you want to read about.
Quick Summary :-
A software’s capacity to scale and satisfy users’ demands over time is greatly influenced by its architectural design. This article discusses various software architecture patterns, their significance, and comparative analysis to aid in your decision-making.
Any software flaws have a significant effect on an organization’s business. The choice of incorrect software architecture patterns can be the primary cause of any software failure. However, armed with prior knowledge, you could direct programmers and designers in creating the components and their reactions.
It is common for businesses to begin the application development process without a formal architecture in place. They frequently overlook the possibility that the lack of an architectural pattern might force the developing team to use a conventional pattern with no rules. They eventually produce codes that are unclear regarding roles, obligations, and interpersonal relationships.
For instance, a complex architecture like the microservices pattern would not be necessary for an online banking application. For fetching requests, it can be easily developed using a client-server architecture. However, without this planning, the application might complicate, leaving no room for error or risking a significant loss on the restructuring process’ investment. Planning an architecture pattern aids in risk analysis and prevents any negative effects on the business.
Let’s examine what software architecture patterns are and fully explain some of its types so that we can have a clear understanding.
What is an architectural pattern?
An outline that enables you to express and define a structural schema for all types of software systems is what is known as an architectural pattern. It is a reusable solution that offers a set of predefined subsystems, roles, and responsibilities, along with the guidelines and a roadmap for defining their interrelationships. It assists you in dealing with a variety of software engineering issues, including performance restrictions, high availability, reducing business risk, etc.
An architectural pattern is not your system’s actual architecture, despite being a rough representation or blueprint of it. Instead, it’s a theory that clarifies the components of software architecture. The same pattern may be used in countless different architectural designs. Patterns are therefore referred to as “strictly described and commonly utilised.” The choice of software architecture determines the system’s success.
The MVC pattern, MVVM, microkernel, n-tier, domain-driven design components, message bus, service requester/consumer, and presentation-abstraction-control are popular architectural pattern examples.
What is the importance of software architecture pattern?
Software architecture patterns are very important because they can be used to solve many different problems across many different domains. Complex user requests, for instance, can easily be divided up into smaller chunks and distributed across multiple servers, reducing the reliance on a single server. Another illustration of how testing protocols can be made simpler is to test different parts of the software rather than the entire thing all at once.
Additional justifications for the importance of software architecture patterns in software applications are provided below:
Defining Basic Characteristics of an Application:
It becomes crucial to understand the traits, benefits, and drawbacks of each architecture before selecting the best one to achieve your business goals. Architecture patterns have been found to be useful in defining the fundamental traits and behaviours of an application. For example, while some architecture patterns are naturally suited for agile applications, others can be used for highly scalable applications.
Maintaining Quality and Efficiency:
Any application you create has a very high chance of experiencing quality problems. Selecting an architecture pattern can help reduce the quality issues while maintaining efficiency based on your software development quality attributes.
Providing Agility:
Software applications frequently change and iterate both during software development and even after they are released. Therefore, by pre-planning a core software architecture, the application gains agility and future moderations become simple.
Problem Solving:
The functionality of the application and its components can be clearly understood with the help of prior planning and understanding of a software architecture. The development team can use best practises to resolve complex processes and address any errors in the future once an architecture is in place.
Enhancing Productivity:
There must be some standardised principles, regardless of one’s expertise in a programming language, framework, or application. The business can quickly understand the project’s status if it has a suitable application pattern in place. Additionally, productivity rates increase once a clear architecture pattern for the project scope is in place.
Software architecture pattern vs. design pattern
Most people confuse an architecture pattern with a design pattern because there is a fine line between the two. To start, let’s say that your team was assigned the task of constructing a home and moving in.
Before starting the task, they would need to plan it out and lay bricks and cement on a blank piece of ground. Additionally, even after a house is planned, more needs to be done to make it a desirable place to live. These include necessities like kitchen appliances, bedding, toiletries, and a host of other items. In this analogy, the interior design of the house represents design patterns, whereas how the house should look represents architectural patterns.
When developing business logic, database logic, user interface (UI), etc. in a software system, architecture is taken into account, as opposed to using software design patterns.
Different types of software architecture pattern
Let’s talk about a few common architectural patterns that have aided many software companies in growing their businesses:
1. Layered Architecture Pattern
Most likely, you’ve heard of multi-layered, also known as tiered or n-tier architecture. This architecture has become more and more popular among designers and software architects due to its similarities to the traditional IT communication setups found in many startups and large corporations. The four layers of a layered architecture are frequently categorised as presentation, business, persistence, and database. However, the pattern is not limited to these layers and can also include an application layer, service layer, or data access layer. This architectural pattern was used by well-known frameworks like Java EE.
Consider a scenario in which a software engineer is creating a sizable application and finds themselves using all four layers of their architecture pattern. On the other hand, small businesses might combine the business and persistence layers into a single entity, especially if the latter is used as a crucial component of the business logic layer.
Each layer in this pattern is distinct within the application and is designated as closed, which makes it stand out. It indicates that in order to move on to the layer below it, a request must first pass through that layer. Layers of isolation, another of its ideas, let you change components within one layer without affecting those in other layers.
Let’s use an example of an eCommerce web application to illustrate this process. The presentation tier receives the business logic directly from the application tier in order to process a shopping cart activity, such as calculating the cart. The application tier serves in this case as an integration layer to create frictionless communication between the data and presentation layers. The data tier, which is the final tier, is also used to maintain data independently of the application server and business logic.
Usage:
- Applications that are needed to be built quickly.
- Enterprise applications that require traditional IT departments and processes.
- Appropriate for teams with inexperienced developers and limited knowledge of architecture patterns.
- Applications that require strict standards of maintainability and testability.
Shortcomings:
- Unorganized source codes and modules with no definite roles can become a problem for the application.
- Skipping previous layers to create tight coupling can lead to a logical mess full of complex interdependencies.
- Basic modifications can require a complete redeployment of the application.
2. Event-driven Architecture Pattern
An event-driven architecture pattern is the best choice if you want a flexible and highly effective architecture design. Its decoupled, specialised event processing components receive and process events asynchronously. This pattern controls how people behave in relation to the events’ production, detection, and consumption as well as the reactions they elicit.
The mediator and broker topologies are the two that make up the event-driven architectural style. When several steps need to be coordinated within an event bus through a central mediator, a mediator is used. On the other hand, a broker is utilised to connect events decentralised mediator-free.
An e-commerce website is a good illustration of event-driven architecture in use. The e-commerce website can respond to different sources at a time of high demand thanks to the event-driven architecture. It simultaneously prevents any application crashes and resource overprovisioning.
Usage:
- For applications where individual data blocks interact with only a few modules.
- Helps with user interfaces.
Shortcomings:
- Testing individual modules can only be done if they are independent, otherwise, they need to be tested in a fully functional system.
- When several modules are handling the same events, error handling becomes challenging to structure.
- Development of a system-wide data structure for events can become arduous if the events have different needs.
- Maintaining a transaction-based mechanism for consistency can become complex with decoupled and independent modules.
3. Microkernel Architecture Pattern
A core system and several plug-in modules make up the two types of components that make up this architecture pattern. While the plug-in modules are independent components with specialised processing, the core system only needs to function at the bare minimum to keep the system running.
From the viewpoint of a business application, the core system can be described as general business logic devoid of any custom code for unique circumstances, unique rules, or intricate conditional procedures. The plug-in modules, on the other hand, are designed to improve the core system and add new business capabilities.
Using a task scheduler application as an example, the microkernel houses all the logic for triggering and scheduling tasks, while the plug-ins house the individual tasks. The microkernel can activate plug-ins without being aware of the implementation specifics as long as they follow a predefined API.
Usage:
- Applications that have a clear segmentation between basic routines and higher-order rules.
- Applications that have a fixed set of core routines and dynamic set of rule that needs frequent updates.
Shortcoming:
- The plugins must have good handshaking code so that the microkernel is aware of the plugin installation and is ready to work.
- Changing a microkernel is almost impossible if there are multiple plugins dependent on it.
- It is difficult to choose the right granularity for the kernel function in advance and more complex at a later stage.
4. Microservices Architecture Pattern
Monolithic applications and service-oriented architectures are seen as strong competitors to the microservices architecture pattern. Through an efficient, streamlined delivery pipeline, the components are deployed separately. Enhanced scalability and a high level of decoupling within the application are two advantages of the pattern.
A remote access protocol is used to access the components because of their decoupled and independent nature. Furthermore, the identical components can be created, implemented, and tested independently, independent of any other service component.
One of the pioneers of the microservice architecture pattern was Netflix. The engineering team was able to work in small teams responsible for the complete development of hundreds of microservices thanks to the architecture. Together, these microservices stream digital entertainment to daily millions of Netflix subscribers.
Usage:
- Businesses and web applications that require rapid development.
- Websites with small components, data centers with well-defined boundaries, and remote teams globally.
Shortcoming:
- Designing the right level of granularity for a service component is always a challenge.
- All applications do not include tasks that can be split into independent units.
- Performance can be affected because of tasks being spread across different microservices.
5. Space-Based Architecture Pattern
The name of this architecture is based on the idea of tuple space and distributed shared memory. Two main parts make up the space-based pattern: a processing unit and a virtualized middleware.
Parts of application components, including web-based components and backend business logic, are contained in the processing unit. While a single processing unit could be used to deploy a smaller web application, a larger application could divide the functionality into multiple processing units to prevent functional collapse. The virtualized middleware component also includes components that regulate different facets of data synchronisation and request handling. They can be written specifically for you or you can buy third-party products.
A good illustration of this architecture pattern would be a bidding auction website. It works by sending a browser request to the site, which then receives bids from internet users. After receiving the request, the website updates the information with the most recent bid, records the bid with a timestamp, and sends the data back to the browser.
Usage:
- Applications and software systems that function with a large user base and a constant load of requests.
- Applications that are supposed to address scalability and concurrency issues.
Shortcoming:
- Caching the data for speed without affecting multiple copies is a difficult task.
6. Client-Server Architecture Pattern
A distributed application structure with two main components—a client and a server—is referred to as having a client-server architecture pattern. The communication between the client and server, which may or may not be connected to the same network, is made easier by this architecture. A client asks the server to fetch certain resources, such as data, content, services, files, etc. from the server. When a request is made, the server recognises it and responds to the client by sending the requested resources.
Programmes that interact with one another within an application are an example of the functionality of a client and a server. As a single client can use multiple servers or a single server can serve multiple clients, this architecture’s functionality is very flexible. Regardless of how well they function, servers can be categorised according to the resources or services they offer.
One well-known model created using the client-server pattern is email. When a user or client requests a specific email, the server searches its pool of resources and replies with the requested email resource. Additionally, this aids in enhancing user experience.
Usage:
- Applications like emails, online banking services, the World Wide Web, network printing, file sharing applications, gaming apps, etc.
- Applications that focus on real-time services like telecommunication apps are built with a distributed application structure.
- Applications that require controlled access and offer multiple services for a large number of distributed clients.
- An application with centralized resources and services that has to be distributed over multiple servers.
Shortcomings:
- Incompatible server capacity can slow down, causing a performance bottleneck.
- Servers are usually prone to a single point of failure.
- Changing the pattern is a complex and expensive process.
- Server maintenance can be a demanding and expensive task.
7. Master-Slave Architecture Pattern
Consider a single database that is simultaneously flooded with a number of similar requests. Naturally, handling every request simultaneously could make the application process more difficult and take longer. A master-slave architecture pattern that works by the master database launching numerous slave components to quickly process those requests offers a solution to this issue.
The master-slave architecture pattern can be visualised as a master assigning tasks to its slaves, as the title suggests. The distributed tasks are compiled by the master and presented as the result after the slave components have completed their tasks.
It is important to remember that the master component, which determines the slave components’ communication and functional priorities, has total authority over them. This pattern differs from others in that each slave would process the requests concurrently and deliver the results simultaneously. This also implies that until all slaves have given the master their results, the slave operations would not be deemed finished.
For applications that can be divided into smaller chunks for carrying out similar requests, this design pattern works well. An appropriate example would be a database application, which is crucially dependent on heavy multitasking.
Usage:
- Development of Operating Systems that may require a multiprocessors compatible architecture.
- Advanced applications where larger services have to be decomposed into smaller components.
- Applications processing raw data stored in different servers over a distributed network.
- Web browsers that follow multithreading to increase its responsiveness.
Shortcomings:
- Failure of the master component can lead to a loss of data with no backup over the slave components.
- Dependencies within the system can lead to a failure of the slave components.
- There can be an increase in overhead costs due to the isolated nature of the slave components.
8. Pipe-Filter Architecture Pattern
In a pipe-filter architecture pattern, components are referred to as filters and pipes are the elements that connect these filters, processing a stream of data in a unidirectional flow. The pipes send data to the filters, and the output of one filter becomes the input for the next filter in the chain of data processing. This architecture’s purpose is to divide important parts or processes into separate, numerous parts that can all be processed at once.
The pipe-filter pattern is best suited for applications that can generate simple sequences to complex structures and process data in a stream using web services. Since each filter performs lexical analysis, parsing, semantic analysis, and code generation, compilers can be used as an appropriate example of this architecture pattern.
Usage:
- It can be used for applications facilitating a simple, one-way data processing and transformation.
- Applications using tools like Electronic Data Interchange and External Dynamic List.
- Development of data compilers used for error-checking and syntax analysis.
- To perform advanced operations in Operating Systems like UNIX, where the output and input of programs are connected in a sequence.
Shortcomings:
- There can be a loss of data in between filters if the infrastructure design is not reliable.
- The slowest filter limits the performance and efficiency of the entire architecture.
- During transmission between filters, the data-transformation overhead costs might increase.
- The continuous transformational character of the architecture makes it less user-friendly for interactional systems.
9. Broker Architecture Pattern
For constructing distributed systems with uncoupled components, a broker pattern is used. Components can communicate with one another in broker architecture patterns by calling remote services. The broker is also in charge of all component coordination and communication.
The three main parts of the broker pattern are clients, servers, and brokers. A broker typically has access to all the features and services associated with a specific server. When clients ask the broker for a service, the broker directs them to the appropriate service category for further action.
This architecture pattern’s ability to handle operations like change, addition, deletion, or relocation related to objects in a dynamic way is one of its main advantages. Last but not least, this architectural pattern separates all communication-related code from the application into layers, enabling applications to run on distributed or solitary computers. Broker architecture is common because of these benefits.
Usage:
- Used in message broker softwares such as Apache ActiveMQ, Apache Kafka, RabbitMQ, and JBoss Messaging.
- For structuring distributed systems that have decoupled components.
Shortcomings:
- Shallow fault tolerance capacity.
- Requires standardization of service description.
- The hidden layer may decrease software performance.
- Higher latency and requires more effort in deployment.
10. Peer-to-Peer Architecture Pattern
Individual components are referred to as peers in the peer-to-peer architectural pattern. A peer can dynamically switch between serving as a client, a server, or both. A peer can act as both a client and a server, requesting services from and offering services to other peers. The absence of a centralised server and the fact that each computer on the network has significant authority are the key differences between peer-to-peer and client-server architecture. As more and more computers join the network, its capacity grows.
File-sharing networks like Skype, BitTorrent, and Napster would be excellent examples of a peer-to-peer architecture pattern. BitTorrent uses peer-to-peer architecture to decentralizedly distribute data and files over the internet. This protocol makes it incredibly simple to transfer large video and audio files. The VoIP P2P architecture pattern is used in Skype to place voice calls and send text messages to other users. Peer-to-peer architecture can be used in this way for collaboration, messaging, and file sharing, among other things.
Usage:
- File-sharing networks such as Gnutella and G2.
- Cryptocurrency-based products such as Bitcoin and Blockchain.
- Multimedia products such as P2PTV and PDTP.
Shortcomings:
- No guarantee of high-quality service.
- Achieving robust security is challenging.
- Performance depends on the number of nodes connected to the network.
- No way to backup files or folders.
- Might need a specific interface to read the file.
Comparative analysis of different software architecture patterns
We have read up to this point about various architecture patterns. Which architecture would you pick for your particular software type now? You must make the best decision.
Let’s take a quick look at the following table.
Is it necessary to hire a software architect?
An “Architect” must, in my opinion, be a senior programmer. It is a recipe for disaster in software companies to have an architect who doesn’t programme and a few programmers who don’t understand the fundamentals of architecture. Modern applications require quick thinking and a core that is standardised and creates a rock-solid foundation for the application. A software architecture pattern establishes a solution-based vision for long-term objectives for the company as well as the application in question.
Working with lead engineers who have an understanding of architecture makes it easier to identify team compositional gaps, ensure effective training, and promote company growth. Our expert engineers at Simform have a wealth of knowledge and experience in implementing the best architectural strategies for software projects. Our advice has helped companies choose the best architecture for their software applications.
Contact us if you have any questions; we’d be happy to work with you on your ideal project. Let us know what you think by leaving a comment below.
