Application Architecture: Demystifying the Concept

Quick Summary: Planning to build an application for your business and want to explore the concept of application architecture? Developing the right app requires a good approach and structure that meets the prescribed standards and quality that you fulfill with the right architecture. Here, we have provided all essential information about application architecture, its benefits, and types to help you make an informed decision. Keep reading for the information.

In this world of fast-paced digitalization, we are surrounded by a wide range of applications that serve different purposes, from chatting to online shopping. Businesses are leveraging applications to expand their reach and maximize their revenues. However, you need to build the right application that resonates with your audience and adheres to the modern ecosystem to survive the cutthroat competition.

Choosing the best architecture is the first step in application development, as it helps you determine the behavior and structure of your app. Just like there are different architectural patterns for building a house, there are different types of architecture for developing applications, whether native or web based.

The architecture is the foundation of every application, so you need a good architect to create a stable, secure, and scalable enterprise application. You need to understand what application architecture is, its importance, and the different architectural styles to make a prudent decision for your business app.

So, let’s dive into the sea of information about application architecture and more.

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What is Application Architecture?

Application architecture defines the methods and patterns you can follow to design and build your application. It provides the direction and best practices to build your application with the right features and structure. The behavior of your application is determined by the architecture it is built upon.

Architecture is the starting point in the process of developing an application and it shows how different components of your application are to be arranged. It also provides details on how different components will interact and deliver functionality.

What is the Use of Application Architecture?

To answer this question, just imagine if you want to reach a destination you haven’t been to before, how will you do it? It’s obvious that you can use a mapping service like Google Maps to find the location and reach there by following the directions and instructions. Similarly, architecture provides you with a pattern and guidelines to implement your application to bring it into reality. The other benefits of software application architecture include:

• It provides a whole picture of your application to ensure a smooth implementation.
• It can help to reduce costs by avoiding redundancies.
• You can build your app precisely with a consistent roadmap.
• It helps to make the right choices for functionalities and app structure.
• You can build a well-structured application by reducing complexities.

Types of Application Architectures

Various application architectural patterns have evolved over time, providing more efficient and quality ways to build applications. However, as CTO, COO, or product manager, it’s your responsibility to make a good decision about the architecture for enterprise application development to make it the way you want it.

Let’s take a look at the most common application architecture models.

Monolithic Architecture

Monolithic architecture provides a cohesive application structure where all of the business concerns are coupled in a single codebase. Therefore, it’s a tightly packed system of interdependent functionalities. It is a primary architecture for most legacy applications. Simpler design and fast performance are among the key benefits of monolithic application architecture.

Although this is an efficient and coherent system, it has numerous disadvantages, like limited flexibility and stability. Further, a complex structure makes system updates and maintenance a hard nut to crack. Hence, monolithic architecture is a more suitable option to develop mobile apps with fewer functionalities.

N-Tier Architecture

Tiered architecture is divided into separate layers that stack above each other to manage various aspects of an application. These layers pass on data either downward or upward, depending on the application architecture design.

These layers work with each other and data moves from one layer to another. In the N-tier architecture, there can be any number of layers, but usually, there are 3-4 layers. Also, typically, two layers, the Data layer and UI layer, are common for most n-tier architectures.

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Microservices Architecture

Today, businesses have accelerated their digital transformation efforts with the increasing customer needs. Therefore, they need more flexible applications that can be quickly adapted to meet the rising demands. Microservices is the best-suited application architecture for creating complex decoupled applications.

Microservices architecture is composed of smaller services and these services lack interdependence, meaning they are not dependent on each other. Every microservice can be developed, deployed, and modified without affecting the whole application because of its exclusivity.

Mobile App Architecture

Today, there are two prominent mobile operating systems, namely Android and iOS. Apps for each of these mobile operating systems use different types of architectures. For example, iOS apps can be based on MVC (Model-View-Controller), MVP (Model-View-Presenter), and MVVM (Model-View-ViewModel) architectures.

On the other hand, Android apps use a layered architecture comprising typically - UI, domain, and data layers. The choice of architecture will also determine the success of your app across the different stages of mobile app development. A simple and quick to implement architecture will require a shorter SDLC with a smaller development team, but the more complex architecture will require the opposite of it.

Event-Driven Architecture

It’s an architecture that functions based on the interactions of event generators, event routers, and event consumers. Event-driven architecture is prevailing in modern applications that are based on microservices. An event flags a change in state or update in this architecture.

Single Page Application Architecture

It’s a type of web app that provides a single web page and the content on that web page is dynamically updated through JavaScript. The popularity of Single Page Applications (SPA) has increased in recent times because it offers numerous benefits ranging from fast performance to seamless user experience. Today, user experience counts the most for the success of applications. Undoubtedly, SPA is a kind of web app architecture that can help you build highly user-friendly applications.

Serverless Architecture

Serverless architecture is one of the modern application architectures that has evolved to overcome the challenges of on-premises server infrastructure. However, the term is a misnomer because the server is still used, but the difference is it’s provided by a third-party vendor as computing resources.

Serverless architecture removes the burden of managing and maintaining on-premises servers, and businesses get the freedom to focus on their core concerns. Moreover, it’s more flexible, scalable, cost-effective, and offers quicker application release time.

Service Oriented Architecture

Another prominent application architecture is SOA. Service Oriented Architecture or SOA is a software development model where enterprise applications are built with components known as services. These services are reusable components that can be used as-is or repurposed for other tasks. For example, authentication is essential for different business processes. In that case, you can utilize the authorization service across different business processes.

Hence, a single authentication service can be utilized for different applications. Every service is a standalone entity with a complete business function. SOA offers numerous advantages, including ease of maintenance, reduced complexity of code, and faster development. SOA is different from microservices architecture. Microservices work on an application level and SOA works on an enterprise level.

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In ConclusionToday, businesses have more choices to create their applications. There are traditional application architectures like monolithic and cutting-edge architectures like microservices. Making the right choice about the architecture is crucial for the success of your application. This is an era of technologies like cloud computing, and you can leverage it with cloud application development.The use of microservices, containerization, and hybrid cloud is increasing in developing and deploying software solutions. It provides a scalable and flexible structure for your application that helps you easily scale and grow your business. You can rely on a software development partner like Radixweb to build the best applications that align with your business objectives and match modern requirements.At Radixweb, we excel in the latest technologies and have experience in developing applications with a wide range of architectures. We can help you develop high-performance, secure, and scalable applications based on stable and resilient architectures.