What is meant by System Architecture?

Here is a conversation which I had with my best friend Anand today and I felt there is something in it that needs to be recorded.

Anand: Hey Rakesh.

Me:  Hi Anand. Long time.


Anand: So How is it in VGSOM?


Me: Nice yaar. Learned some good stuff in Business Information Systems today.

Anand: Oh that sounds great. Tell me what you learned.


Me: The topic was System Architecture.


Anand: System Architecture.... What is it all about?


Me: It is the modelling of the structure and behavior of system with in an organization.The data and application are inter related with in a system.


Anand: What are the different kinds of architecture?


Me: There is single tier architecture, two tier architecture, three tier architecture, multi tier architecture and multiple system architecture.


Anand: Could you please elaborate?


Me: In single tier architecture, data and application are on the same physical hardware and they both are always separate.

In 2-Tier architecture, data is stored in servers and applications are stored in client machines. Local Area Network is used to connect clent machines to servers using TCP/IP protocols. It requires high bandwidth lines.

In 3-Tier architecture,business logic is kept centrally and application logic is kept locally. It needs only low bandwidth lines as data transfer over the network is minimized.

In Multi-Tier architecture, the business application is web enabled. Here the presentation, application processing and data management are logically separate processes. There would be a web server to do some publish the data into the web and web browsers in the client machines could subscribe to it.

Anand: How do you ensure secure transmission of data in Multi-Tier architecture?

Me: There would be firewall servers installed to prevent hackers from accessing the company confidential data and you can have low cost system architecture which is web based.

Anand: That was very informative. I feel you have made the right choice. Carry on the good work.

Me: Thanks my friend. C ya later...