Before going into detail about the different types of software architecture patterns, let's refresh their meaning a bit: Software architecture is the software creation model... It's that simple! These show the general structure of the software, the collection of components it contains, and how they interact with each other while hiding the implementation.
The importance of these is that they help the software development team to clearly communicate how the software is going to be built according to the requirements and specifications that the client asks for! Of course there are several ways to organize the components in the software architecture, that's the beauty of it! And within these free ways of organizing there are predefined organizations that help you and simplify your work, these are known as software architecture patterns. Each of these helps to solve various problems successfully and efficiently.
Keep in mind that each pattern helps to organize different problems in specific ways, so in this blog we will show you the most important and commonly used patterns so that if you ever need them, you will know which one to use!
These are the different software architecture patterns we will talk about:
- Layered pattern
- Client-server pattern
- Event based pattern
- Microservices pattern
Let's see them one by one in detail, starting with:
- Layered Pattern:
As it says in its name, the components in this pattern are separated into subtask layers and arranged on top of each other creating layers! Each layer has unique tasks to perform and they are all independent of each other, meaning you can modify code within one layer without affecting the others.
This pattern is easy to use if you are just starting out with architectural patterns, and it will be very useful if you use it for the development of e-commerce web applications such as: Amazon.
2. Client-server Pattern:
This pattern can be a bit complicated to understand at first but basically it has two main entities, and that is a server and multiple clients. Here the server has its resources that are: data, files or services. And a client asks the server for a particular resource. The server then processes the request and responds accordingly to this request.
For a better understanding, you can take into account these examples of software developed where this pattern is used:
- Email.
- WWW.
- Banking, etc...
So this pattern is right for you if you are looking to develop software similar to these examples!
3. Event Based Pattern:
If you like working with JavaScript this pattern may interest you! Since the Event-Driven Architecture has an agile approach in which the services (operations) of the software are activated by events.
But what does an event mean in this? It can be defined as: “a significant change in state” for example when a user performs an action in the created application and a change occurs and based on that action a reaction called Event arises. Take for example when a new user fills out the signup form and clicks the signup button on Twitter and then a twitter account is created for them, that's exactly what an event is.
This pattern is ideal for you if you work on creating websites with JavaScript and e-commerce websites in general.
4. Microservices Pattern:
The concept of this pattern is when you make the collection of small services that are combined to form the actual application. Instead of creating a larger application, small programs are created for each service (function) of an application independently.
And those little programs are bundled together to be a complete application. Therefore, adding new features and modifying existing microservices without affecting other microservices is no longer a challenge when an application is built on a microservices pattern.
In fact one of the most successful applications today uses a microservices architecture! That's right we are talking about Netflix! This pattern is more suitable for websites and web applications that have small components.
And that's it! A little hint about some of the architectural patterns that you can start using! Remember that architecture patterns determine the destination of the software to be built and there is no single solution to create any type of software. So it's your decision to choose what suits you best!