A
telephonic conversation between my friend and me regarding system architecture
Sangita: Hello! How are you?
Me: Hi! I am fine dear. How is your new MBA College?
Sangita: I am loving it. Just taking some time to get
adjusted with the new schedule.
Me: Yes don’t worry you will soon be able to cope up.
Sangita: Yes. I need a help from you. Since you are good
at IT it will be of great help if you can explain me system architecture. I am
having difficulty in understanding that part.
Me: yes surely. A system architecture is
the conceptual model that defines the structure, behavior,
and more views of
a system. It is basically description
and representation of a system, organized in a way that supports reasoning
about the structure of the system which
comprises system components, the externally visible properties of those
components, the relationships between them, and provides a plan from which
products can be procured, and systems developed, that will work together to
implement the overall system.
Sangita:
Ok does it simply mean the interconnection between hardware and software
components in a network?
Me: yes
exactly.
Sangita:
and what are the different kinds of system architecture?
Me: We have different kinds of System
Architecture as Single tier integrated Systems, Two-tier: client server
architecture, Three-tier architecture and Multi-tier architecture.
Sangita: Can you please explain each?
Me: Yes. Starting with single tier integrated systems, in
this, data and application can be on the same physical hardware like laptop,
desktop but data must be logically distinct from application.
Sangita: ok. And what about two tier?
Me: In two tier: client server architecture, the data is
stored with the server, and the applications are stored with clients, who have
individual machines. The server and the clients are interconnected by Local
Area Network (LAN).
Sangita: yes I got it.
Me:
another thing I would like to add is the software used by the server are oracle, MySQL, SQL
Server, DB2, etc.
Sangita: Ok and what are
the applications used?
Me: the applications contain both the business rules
(business logic) and the GUI (Graphical User Interface) which is the
presentation logic.
Sangita:
What are the advantages and disadvantages of two-tier?
Me:
The advantages include it does not place processing burden on server machine
when you have hundreds of users. To tell about its disadvantages firstly it
requires high bandwidth which slows down the application. Secondly, we have to
do maintenance of distributed software.
Sangita:
What is three-tier architecture?
Me:
In three-tier architecture application is partitioned where the business logic
is kept centrally and the presentation logic is kept on the client.
Sangita:
Ok and what about multi-tier architecture?
Me:
multi-tier architecture is a client–server architecture in which the presentation, the application processing, and
the data management are logically separate processes.
Sangita: How does the client access the data?
Me: The client access through Wide Area Network (WAN).
Sangita: What are its advantages and disadvantages?
Me: Advantage is there is no need for specialist software at
each client location. Disadvantage is that business application has to be web
enabled.
Sangita: Ok I think I got a good idea on system architecture.
We can discuss more later.
Me: yes absolutely. Call me if you have any problem.
Sangita: Thank you so much.
Me: You are welcome. But I understood so well because of our
faculty of Business information systems at Praxis, Prof. Prithwis Mukherjee.
Sangita: Nice to know that. I will call you up further for
any help. Good night.
Me: Anytime. Good night.