Software architecture is like the blueprint for building software, showing how

different parts fit together and interact. It helps the development team
understand how to build the software according to customer requirements.
There are many ways to organize these parts, called software architecture
patterns. These patterns have been tested and proven to solve different
problems by arranging components in specific ways. This article focuses on
discussing Software Architecture Patterns in detail.

 Types of Software Architecture Patterns

o 1. Layered Architecture Pattern
o 2. Client-Server Architecture Pattern
o 3. Event-Driven Architecture Pattern
o 4. Microkernel Architecture Pattern
o 5. Microservices Architecture Pattern
o 6. Space-Based Architecture Pattern
o 7. Master-Slave Architecture Pattern
o 8. Pipe-Filter Architecture Pattern
o 9. Broker Architecture Pattern
o 10. Peer-to-Peer Architecture Pattern

Types of Software Architecture Patterns

1. Layered Architecture Pattern
As the name suggests, components(code) in this pattern are separated into
layers of subtasks and they are arranged one above another. Each layer has
unique tasks to do and all the layers are independent of one another. Since
each layer is independent, one can modify the code inside a layer without
affecting others. It is the most commonly used pattern for designing the
majority of software. This layer is also known as ‘N-tier architecture’.
Basically, this pattern has 4 layers.
1. Presentation layer: The user interface layer where we see and enter
data into an application.)
2. Business layer: This layer is responsible for executing business logic as
per the request.)
3. Application layer: This layer acts as a medium for communication
between the ‘presentation layer’ and ‘data layer’.
4. Data layer: This layer has a database for managing data.)
Advantages:
1. Scalability: Individual layers in the architecture can be scaled
independently to meet performance needs.
2. Flexibility: Different technologies can be used within each layer without
affecting others.
3. Maintainability: Changes in one layer do not necessarily impact other
layers, thus simplifying the maintenance.
Disadvantages:
1. Complexity: Adding more layers to the architecture can make the system
more complex and difficult to manage.
2. Performance Overhead: Multiple layers can introduce latency due to
additional communication between the layers.
3. Strict Layer Separation: Strict layer separation can sometimes lead to
inefficiencies and increased development effort.
Use Cases:
1. Enterprise Applications like Customer Relationship Management (CRM).
2. Web Applications like E-commerce platforms.
3. Desktop Applications such as Financial Software.
4. Mobile Applications like Banking applications.
5. Content Management Systems like WordPress.
2. Client-Server Architecture Pattern
The client-server pattern has two major entities. They are a server and
multiple clients. Here the server has resources(data, files or services) and a
client requests the server for a particular resource. Then the server
processes the request and responds back accordingly.
Advantages:
1. Centralized Management: Servers can centrally manage resources,
data, and security policies, thus simplifying the maintenance.
2. Scalability: Servers can be scaled up to handle increased client
requests.
3. Security: Security measures such as access controls, data encryption
can be implemented in a better way due to centralized controls.
Disadvantages:
1. Single Point of Failure: Due to centralized server, if server fails clients
lose access to services, leading loss of productivity.
2. Costly: Setting up and maintaining servers can be expensive due to
hardware, software, and administrative costs.
3. Complexity: Designing and managing a client-server architecture can be
complex.
Use Cases:
1. Web Applications like Amazon.
2. Email Services like Gmail, Outlook.
3. File Sharing Services like Dropbox, Google Drive.
4. Media Streaming Services like Netflix.
5. Education Platforms like Moodle.
3. Event-Driven Architecture Pattern
Event-Driven Architecture is an agile approach in which services (operations)
of the software are triggered by events. When a user takes action in the
application built using the EDA approach, a state change happens and a
reaction is generated that is called an event.
Example:
A new user fills the signup form and clicks the signup button on Facebook
and then a FB account is created for him, which is an event.
Advantages:
1. Scalability: System can scale horizontally by adding more consumers.
2. Real-time Processing: This enables real-time processing and immediate
response to events.
3. Flexibility: New event consumers can be added without modifying
existing components.
Disadvantages:
1. Complexity: The architecture can be complex to design, implement, and
debug.
2. Complex Testing: Testing event-driven systems can be complicated
compared to synchronous systems.
3. Reliability: Ensuring reliability requires additional mechanisms to handle
failed events.
Use Cases:
1. Real-Time Analytics like stock market analysis systems.
2. IoT Applications like smart home systems.
3. Financial Systems like fraud detection systems monitor transactions in
real-time.
4. Online multiplayer games.
5. Customer Support Systems like Chatbots.
4. Microkernel Architecture Pattern
Microkernel pattern has two major components. They are a core system and
plug-in modules.
 The core system handles the fundamental and minimal operations of the
application.
 The plug-in modules handle the extended functionalities (like extra
features) and customized processing.
Let’s imagine, you have successfully built a chat application. And the basic
functionality of the app is that you can text with people across the world
without an internet connection. After some time, you would like to add a
voice messaging feature to the application, then you are adding the feature
successfully. You can add that feature to the already developed application
because the microkernel pattern facilitates you to add features as plug-ins.
Advantages:
1. Flexibility: New functionalities can be added easily through plug-ins.
2. Scalability: The system can scale by adding more plug-ins to handle
more tasks.
3. Maintainability: Plug-ins are developed and tested independently which
makes maintenance easier.
Disadvantages:
1. Complex Communication: Managing communication between the core
systems and plug-ins can be complex.
2. Lack Built-in Functionalities: Due to minimalistic design the basic
functionalities are absent that are common in monolithic architectures.
3. Complex Design: Designing the microkernel and its communication
mechanisms can be challenging.
Use Cases:
1. Operating Systems like Windows NT and macOS.
2. Embedded Systems like Automotive Software Systems.
3. Plugin-based Applications like Eclipse IDE.
5. Microservices Architecture Pattern
The collection of small services that are combined to form the actual
application is the concept of microservices pattern. Instead of building a
bigger application, small programs are built for every service (function) of an
application independently. And those small programs are bundled together to
be a full-fledged application. So adding new features and modifying existing
microservices without affecting other microservices are no longer a
challenge when an application is built in a microservices pattern. Modules in
the application of microservices patterns are loosely coupled. So they are
easily understandable, modifiable and scalable.
Advantages:
1. Scalability: Each service can be scaled independently based on demand.
2. Faster Delivery: Independent services allows teams to develop, test, and
deploy features faster.
3. Easier Maintenance: Services can be updated and maintained
independently.
Disadvantages:
1. Complex Management: Managing multiple services requires robust
monitoring and management tools.
2. Network Congestion: Increased network traffic between services can
lead to congestion and overhead.
3. Security: Securing multiple services and their communication increases
the probability of attack.
Use Cases:
1. E-commerce Platforms like Amazon and eBay.
2. Streaming services like Netflix and Spotify.
3. Online Banking Platforms.
4. Electronic Health Record (EHR) Systems.
5. Social Media Platforms like Twitter and Facebook.
6. Space-Based Architecture Pattern
Space-Based Architecture Pattern is also known as Cloud-Based or Grid-
Based Architecture Pattern. It is designed to address the scalability issues
associated with large-scale and high-traffic applications. This pattern is built
around the concept of shared memory space that is accessed by multiple
nodes.
Advantages:
1. Scalability: The system can be easily scaled horizontally by adding more
processing units.
2. Performance: In-memory data grids reduces the data access latency.
3. Flexibility: Modular components allow for flexible deployment.
Disadvantages:
1. Complexity: Designing and managing distributed system is complex.
2. Cost: The infrastructure for space-based architecture pattern requires
multiple servers and advanced middleware, which can be expensive.
3. Network Latency: Communication between distributed components can
introduce network latency.
Use Cases:
1. E-commerce Platforms like Amazon.
2. Telecom Service Providers.
3. Multiplayer Online Games.
7. Master-Slave Architecture Pattern
The Master-Slave Architecture Pattern is also known as Primary-Secondary
Architecture. It involves a single master component and that controls multiple
slave components. The master components assign tasks to slave
components and the slave components report the results of task execution
back to the master. This is often used for parallel processing and load
distribution.
Advantages:
1. Scalability: The system can scale horizontally by adding more slave units
to handle increased load.
2. Fault Tolerance: If slave fails, then the master can reassign the tasks to
some another slave. thus enhancing the fault tolerance.
3. Performance: Parallel execution of tasks can improve the performance of
the system.
Disadvantages:
1. Single Point of Failure: The master component is a single point of
failure. If the master fails then the entire system can collapse.
2. Complex Communication: The communication overhead between
master and slave can be significant especially in large systems.
3. Latency: Systems’ responsiveness can be affected by the latency
introduced by master-slave communication.
Use Cases:
1. Database Replication.
2. Load Balancing.
3. Sensor Networks.
4. Backup and Recovery Systems.
8. Pipe-Filter Architecture Pattern
Pipe-Filter Architecture Pattern structures a system around a series of
processing elements called filters that are connected by pipes. Each filter
processes data and passes it to the next filter via pipe.
Advantages:
1. Reusability: Filters can be reused in different pipelines or applications.
2. Scalability: Additional filters can be added to extend the functionality to
the pipeline.
3. Parallelism: Filters can be executed in parallel if they are stateless, thus
improving performance.
Disadvantages:
1. Debugging Difficulty: Identifying and debugging issues are difficult in
long pipelines.
2. Data Format constraints: Filters must agree on the data format,
requiring careful design and standardization.
3. Latency: Data must be passed through multiple filters, which can
introduce latency.
Use Cases:
1. Data Processing Pipelines like Extract, Transform, Load (ETL) processes
in data warehousing.
2. Compilers.
3. Stream-Processing like Apache Flink.
4. Image and Signal Processing.
9. Broker Architecture Pattern
The Broker architecture pattern is designed to manage and facilitate
communication between decoupled components in a distributed system. It
involves a broker that acts as a intermediary to route the requests to the
appropriate server.
Advantages:
1. Scalability: Brokers support horizontal scaling by adding more servers to
handle increased load.
2. Flexibility: New servers can be added and the existing ones can be
removed or modified without impacting the entire system.
3. Fault Tolerance: If a server fails, then broker can route the request to
another server.
Disadvantages:
1. Complex Implementation: Implementing a broker requires robust
management of routing and load balancing, thus make system more
complex.
2. Single Point of Failure: If broker is not designed with failover
mechanisms then it can become a single point of failure.
3. Security Risks: Securing broker component is important to prevent
potential vulnerabilities.
Use Cases:
1. Integration of various enterprise applications like CRM, ERP, and HR
systems.
2. Systems using message brokers like RabbitMQ or Apache Kafka.
3. Sensor networks in IoT applications.
10. Peer-to-Peer Architecture Pattern
The Peer-to-Peer (P2P) architecture pattern is a decentralized network
model where each node, known as a peer, acts as both a client and a server.
There is no central authority or single point of control in P2P architecture
pattern. Peers can share resources, data, and services directly with each
other.
Advantages:
1. Scalability: The network can scale easily as more peers join.
2. Fault Tolerance: As data is replicated across multiple peers, this results
in system being resilient to failures.
3. Cost Efficiency: There is no need for centralized servers, thus reducing
the infrastructure cost.
Disadvantages:
1. Security Risks: Decentralized nature of the architecture makes it difficult
to enforce security policies.
2. Data Consistency: Ensuring data consistency across peers can be
challenging.
3. Complex Management: Managing a decentralized network with
numerous independent peers can be complex.
  Software Architecture Pattern vs Design Pattern
Software Architecture
Features Pattern Design Pattern

This is a high-level This is a low-level solutions for

structure of the entire common software design
Definition system. problems within components.

Borad, covers entire Narrow, focuses on individual

Scope system. components.

Provide reusable solutions for the

Establish entire system
recurring problems within a
layout.
Purpose systems’ implementation.

System stability, structural Behavioral and structural aspects

Focus organization. within components.

It involves architectural
It includes UML diagrams,
diagrams and high-level
detailed design specifications.
Documentaion design documents.

Layered Architecture,
Singleton, Factory, Strategy,
Microservices, Client-
Observer.
Examples Server.