Infrastructure Layer in Software Architecture

Important features of modern approaches to enterprise management, which are based on the business process management model, are a full formalization of activities; comprehensive modeling of measures before their implementation; application of mechanisms for monitoring and controlling the quality of production, which are aimed at optimizing existing business processes. Check what is layered software architecture in the article below.

The Most Useful Software Architecture Patterns

Infrastructures have never been so complex in the past: medium-sized organizations typically used a few file and database servers, as well as a small number of personal computers connected in a simple network. Most small organizations had no servers or networks at all, and all work was done on separate, unconnected PCs. Large organizations differed from medium ones only in the presence of mainframes. Sometimes the work of a system administrator was difficult, not because of imperfect networking practices but because of a lack of information about drivers, uninformative error codes, and inconvenient device interfaces. In general, the work was quite simple from a technical point of view.

A good software architecture should be built to support the application systems that play an important role in the operation of an organization. A good application architecture must make effective use of the technology architecture to ensure that all operational requirements are met at the right level. It’s easy enough to spot the trends in today’s IT world: outsourcing, globalization, increased regulation, ever-increasing complexity, and management’s demands for greater profitability.

The most common architectural pattern is layered software architecture. It is well-known to most architects, designers, and developers. There are no restrictions on the number and type of levels, but in most cases, such an architecture consists of four levels: data presentation, business logic, data storage, and database.

Precise Understanding and Clear Formulation of Layered Software Architecture

Each layer of this architecture performs a strictly limited set of functions (which are not repeated from layer to layer) and does not know how the other layers are arranged. Therefore, the “content” of the levels can be changed without the risk of global conflicts between layers. In general, layered applications are so common that special template generators are created to develop them.

Layered software architecture consists of different layers, each of which corresponds to a separate function. Thus, it is easier to make changes to each individual layer than to deal with the entire architecture. Developers can create flexible and reusable applications. It consists of software, cryptographic technologies, and services that allow businesses and organizations to secure communication channels in computer networks. It combines electronic digital certificates, asymmetric encryption algorithms, and certification centers into a single network architecture.

A standard implementation of layered software architecture might be:

  • Application layer: contains the presentation layer, the application layer, the domain layer, and the data storage and management layer.
  • Domain layer: This layer contains all the domain logic, entities, events, and other types of objects that contain the domain logic.
  • Database Layer: This is the data layer that is used to store the data to be used by the application server.

A number of architectural decisions and trade-offs affect the quality, performance, maintainability, and overall success of a system. Failure to take into account common problems and long-term consequences can put your system at risk. A well-architected program is easier to extend and change, as well as to test, debug, and understand. That is, in fact, it is possible to formulate a list of quite reasonable and universal criteria.