Choosing the Right Software Architecture: A Key to Building Scalable and Robust Systems

In software development, weather you are re architecting the application or building a new one, selecting the right architectural style is critical to ensuring the success of the project, each architectural style brings its unique set of principles, benefits, and trade-offs, making it suitable for specific use cases. Whether you're designing a web-based application, a business-critical enterprise solution, or a high-performance cloud service, understanding these styles helps in aligning architecture with your goals and technical requirements.

In this article I had explained about different architectural styles, I will try my best to introduce its core concepts and discuss how it applies to real-world web-based application examples in most simple terms.

Following are common different architecture styles

• Layered Architecture
• Modular Monolithic Architecture
• Microkernel Architecture
• Microservices Architecture
• Service-Oriented Architecture
• Event-Driven Architecture
• Space-Based Architecture

Layered Architecture

Layered Architect pattern are n-tired patterns where the components are organized in horizontal layers, this is a traditional method for designing most software and is meant to be self-independent, this means that all the components are interconnected but do not depend on each other

For example, in a traditional e-commerce application, you might find a presentation layer for the UI, a business logic layer for processing transactions, and a data layer for managing the database. This separation allows teams to work independently on different layers

?Modular Monolithic Architecture

In this approach a software is built as a single and indivisible unit, with all components tightly coupled together. It breaks down an application into smaller, more manageable modules or components, each module should have its own business logic. It is an architectural approach that combines aspects of both monolithic and modular design paradigms

For example, if the reporting module needs to fetch transaction data, it interacts with the transaction processing module via internal APIs rather than accessing the database directly. This ensures modularity and separation of concerns

MicroKernal Architecture

The microkernel architecture style is a flexible and extensible architecture that allows a developer easily add additional functionality and features to an existing application in the form of extensions, or “plug-ins,”. It is suited for applications with core functionality that can be extended with plug-ins

For example, in a blogging platform: the main system manages posts and comments, while using microkernel architecture we can add plug-ins to share the blog post via social media sharing features.

Microservices Architecture

Microservices architecture is an approach for developing software applications as a collection of small, independent services that communicate with each other over a network, in this approach we break the application into smaller services, which are independent and loosely coupled with each other. Microservices architecture allows a single service to scale horizontally independently, without effecting the other services. While adopting this architecture we can develop each service with different technology as per needs.

For example, if we are developing an ecommerce application, we can distribute the responsibility of each service, i.e Shoping cart, order tracking, Discount.

Service-Oriented Architecture

In this architecture style a core functionality is separated across multiple systems, it focus on reusable, loosely coupled services that interact through a common communication protocol, Applications are made from existing services, thus it can be reused. Each Service in SOA is a complete business function in itself. It uses common communication standards that speeds up the integration into another application

For example, In a healthcare system there are many services integrated to form a big application, like patient management service, appointment management service, billing service, each service in SOA is a complete application in itself, when integrated it forms?? complete system

Event-Driven Architecture

In this architecture, components communicate by producing and responding to events. It is a method of developing systems that allows information to flow in real time between applications, micro services, and connected devices as events occur throughout the business. This architecture gives us the ability to respond to real-time information, quickly and easily also add new services to improves business processes

For example, in a banking system, events such as transactions, fraud detection, account updates, and notifications can produce different events which then trigger’s specific services, it’s the ideal case for event driven architecture

Space-Based Architecture

This architecture is separates the database from all other processes, we scale the application by removing the database and instead using memory grids to manage the data. Instead of scaling a particular tier in our application, we scale the entire architecture together. This architecture is widely used in distributed computing to increase the scalability and performance of a solution.

For example, there are multiple services, each independent of each other with common database, if service A is running its two instances and one of its service receives the request to add a customer, it will store the information into distributed cache, which will first update its second instance of service A, and then it will store it into main database, making the flow eventually consistent.

Conclusion

Software architecture is the backbone of any successful application, the choice of an architecture style—depends on the specific requirements, constraints, and long-term goals of a project. A carefully chosen architectural style can reduce technical debt, and provide a smooth experience for end-users. The importance of choosing the rite architectural style has deep impacts on the business goals, scalability needs, complexity, integration with other systems and real time responsiveness.

By evaluating the system’s requirements and considering long-term goals, organizations can adopt an architecture that not only fulfills current needs but also supports future growth and innovation. Choose it wisely !