Software Architecture Patterns for Product Managers:

It is important for PMs in the Tech space to understand the basic architecture patterns for building robust products.

The top six types are as follows :

1. Layered Architecture
2. Client-Server Architecture
3. Event-Driven Architecture
4. Microservices Architecture
5. Monolithic Architecture
6. Microkernel Architecture

Let us expand on the same and understand them a bit better :

1. Layered Architecture :

• This mechanism focuses on organizing the system into different layers
• Each layer will have a specific task at hand and assists the above layer
• Ex : In Web Apps Interface we typically have an MVC(Model-View-Controller) layer approach

The changes made in one layer will not affect the other

2. Client-Server Architecture:

• The system is bifurcated into two components: Client (Interface) & Server (Request processer)
• The client usually sends the requests to the server where the computation happens and reverts with a response
• Generally a scalable mechanism can manage multiple clients simultaneously
• Variations include : 1-Tier(Logic on Client), 2-Tier(Client speaks with database), 3-Tier (Client-Server with Business logic layer), N-Tier(scalable N layers)

3. Event-Driven Architecture :

• The components communicate with each other by exchanging events asynchronously
• When an event occurs anywhere in the system and is published as a message can be consumed by any subscriber (A Pub-Sub Model)
• This is a loosely coupled architecture and flexible one, real-time collab works very well

Architecture Patterns

4. Microservices Architecture:

• Made functional parts as services that are very much independent
• Every service will have its functional cause and can be developed deployed and scaled accordingly
• APIs (Application Programming Interface) is the medium of communication

5. Monolithic Architecture :

• Unlike Microservices, a monolith is bundled into one single entity of a large codebase
• Easiest way to get started but managing it while it keeps growing is difficult
• A lot of interconnected dependencies to work upon for future development works

6. Microkernel Architecture

• Core functionalities reside in the kernel and the rest all work as add-ons or plugins

How does one choose an architecture?

It depends on a few parameters like :

1. Complexity of the system
2. Performance requirements
3. Maintainability and scalability needs

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