Development Lifecycle Design and Architecture General

Difference in layer and tier architecture Licence

First Posted
C POL
3 Nov 2011
By Ram Balak Sharma | 6 Nov 2011 | Tip/Trick Views 4,620
Bookmarked 6 times
C#

What is the difference in both architectures and benefits

5.00 (5 votes)

N-layers of application may reside on the same physical computor(same tier) and the components in each
layer communicates with the components of other layer by well defined interfaces. Layered architecture
focuses on the grouping of related functionality within an application into distinct layers that are stacked
vertically on top of each other. Communication between layers is explicit and loosely coupled. With strict
layering, components in one layer can interact only with components in the same layer or with components
from the layer directly below it.

The main benefits of the layered architectural style are:

Abstraction,Isolation, Manageability, Performance, Reusability, Testability.

N-tier architecture usually has atleast three separate logical parts, each located on separate physical
server. Each tier is responsible for a specific functionality. Each tier is completely independent from all
other tiers, except for those immediately above and below it. Communication between tiers is typically
asynchronous in order to support better scalability.

The main benefits of tier achitecture styles are:

Maintainability: Because each tier is independent of the other tiers, updates or changes can be
carried out without affecting the application as a whole.
Scalability: Because tiers are based on the deployment of layers, scaling out an application is
reasonably straightforward.
Flexibility: Because each tier can be managed or scaled independently, flexibility is increased.
Availability: Applications can exploit the modular architecture of enabling systems using easily
scalable components, which increases availability.

License
This article, along with any associated source code and files, is licensed under The Code Project Open
License (CPOL)

About the Author

Ram Balak Sharma Ram is .Net Architect by profession and passion having 8 year experience. He has
extensive experience on Microsoft Development Platform and is also Microsoft
Certified Application Developer (MCAD) for Web.
Reach me at rsharma@stackdotnet.com

http://www.stackdotnet.com/
6 Freely avaliable E-Books/

Architect
Q3 technology
India

Member
 Follow on Twitter

Comments and Discussions

1 message has been posted for this article Visit
http://www.codeproject.com/Tips/277818/Difference-in-layer-and-tier-architecture to post and
view comments on this article, or click here to get a print view with messages.

P ermalink | A dvertis e | P rivac y | M obile A rtic le C opyright 2 0 1 1 by Ram Balak Sharma

Web0 1 | 2 .5 .1 2 0 7 3 0 .1 | L as t U pdated 6 N ov 2 0 1 1 E verything els e C opyright C odeP rojec t, 1 9 9 9 - 2 0 1 2
T erms of U s e