Introduction
This Article series helps the .NET developers and architects to design the effective applications on .NET latest technologies. There are so many articles,books on application architecture but it is still challenging for developers to understand best practices, principles for the application design.
This post speaks about the fundamentals concepts of Application Architecture and principles.
What is Application Architecture?
Defining a solution which meets all technical and operational requirements by optimizing performance,security and manageability.
Why Architecture?
Software must built on a solid considerations and failing to meet the key scenarios and understand the design problems will lead to long term consequences. The application needs to address the following concerns .
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How the end user be using your application?
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What about quality attributes security,performance,concurrency, internationalization and configuration.
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What architecture suits for your application now or after it has been deployed?
Goals of Architecture
Application Architecture builds the bridge between business requirements and technical requirements. Good architecture reduces the business risks associated with the solution.
Architecture should consider
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Structure of the system not the implementation details
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User case scenarios
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Concerns of stake holders
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functional and quality requirements
Approach to Architecture
You must determine the type of application that you are building and architecture styles that will be used and cross cutting technologies.
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Identify the type of application
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How the application will be deployed?
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Drill down for architecture styles and technologies
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Considering Quality attributes and cross=cutting concerns.
Application Type
Key part in architecture and design is identifying the type of application.
The application types can be
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Rich Client application designed to run on client PC.
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Rich Internet applications.
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SOA applications designed to support communication between loosely coupled components.
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Smart client applications.
Deployment Strategy
When you design your application you must plan the infrastructure to deploy your application. Your application must accommodate any restrictions that exist in the environment. Identify infrastructure architecture early in the design process.
Architectural Style
Architectural style is set of policies and rules that we used in the component design later that we use in the application.
Examples of architecture styles:
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Client-server
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Layered architecture
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MVC
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SOA
Cross cutting concerns
These concerns are key areas in your design that are not related to any layer in your application. You must consider the following concerns when you are designing your application.
Authentication : Determine how to authenticate users and pass the identities across the layers.
Authorization : Ensure proper authorization across the trusted boundary.
Caching : Identify what should be cached and where to cache to improve your application's performance and responsiveness.
Communication : Choose appropriate protocols to protect sensitive data passing over the network.
Exception Management : Catch exceptions at the boundaries and show meaning full messages to the end users.
Instrumentation and Logging : Instrument all business and system-critical events and log sufficient details. Do not log sensitive information.
Conclusion
This post explained the fundamentals of application architecture and in the next part of the series I am going to explain about Architecture and Design guidelines.