A Dive into Application Architecture - Part 1 - Overview

About the series

Application architecture describes the patterns and techniques used to design and develop an application.

Choosing the right application architecture depends on both technical and business requirements. In this series, we will examine the 3 most common application architectures - Monolithic, Software-oriented, and Microservices architecture.

For the first part, let’s check out an overview of application architecture.

An overview of Application Architecture

Application architecture, also known as software design pattern, is a set of rules that tells developers how to build applications in a certain way. In general, application architecture defines how applications interact with entities such as middleware, databases, and other applications.

Different applications require different approaches, hence why developers use different architecture plans to develop their solutions.

By understanding application architecture, you can improve both the apps' functionality and the user experience. Let’s take a closer look at how having a well-defined application architecture can improve your product.

The importance of application architecture

The quality of an application's architecture depends on:

• ease of use - whether users can solve their missions with the application
• ease of maintenance - whether developers can easily modify the application

Application architecture, in general, enables IT and business planners to collaborate so that the required technological solutions are accessible to fulfill the business objectives.

Here is a closer look at the benefits.

Ensured app functionality

The goal of an application is to do what it's supposed to and be easy to change per request. A good software design pattern helps the app handle large demands while staying functional and stable.

Ease of maintenance and development

For an application to stay competitive, it must be ready to adapt to new technologies as soon as possible. If the app is hard to scale, businesses will suffer from downtime, costings them both time and money.

By breaking up a whole system into smaller pieces, a development team can easily add new features without having to change how the app is built or how it works.

Reduced cost

Some companies compensate for fast development over high quality. As a result, they are at a larger risk of technical debt - the implied cost of additional rework caused by choosing an easy solution now instead of a better though longer one (Wikipedia).

By focusing on refining the architecture, companies can reduce the risks and costs that could come in the future.

Reduced development time

When an application architecture is well-defined, it allows developers to collaborate in real-time. Plus, clean code and easy-to-understand structure also allow a team to recruit more software specialists, reducing development time even further.

Enhanced app security

As application architecture divides a complex code system into smaller parts, each part is checked and protected on its own, making the application safer as a whole.

Closing

An application architecture defines the skeleton and high-level components of a system, and how they will all interact. It also helps the team come up with a solution that meets all technical and operational criteria while improving performance and security. In the next articles, we will dig deeper into the 3 most common types of application architecture - Monolithic, Service-oriented, and Micro-services architecture.