Constantly collect information from several distinct sources (internal and external/ remote) on the status.To accomplish this, a system is required that can: Factory production forward planning area – which parts do we need, by when, to achieve optimized production cycles.Logistics “control room” – where is everyone and everything.Trucks on the road – where are they, carrying which parts.Logistics warehouses – did the parts leave/arrive at the warehouse.3 rd party parts supplier companies – were the parts produced.The factory shop floor (assembly line) – did the parts arrive or not.
Let’s look at a concrete example from the automotive industry concerning logistics software that aims to serve the manufacturer’s assembly line with split second up to date information on parts delivery status, hence needing to be fed by data from:
Amazon needs to be accessible from anywhere, anytime and on any platform (PC Tablet Smartphone) so just on the Presentation Tier there are, in fact, several tiers with distinct “flavors” (Windows, iOS, Android).Most of the time it makes sense to split the above-mentioned tiers to achieve further architecture flexibility, synergy, security, and efficiency. A layer is a logic component within a software suite that accomplishes a given functionality, whereas a tier is the logical and hardware platform where such layer runs. These distinct environments (Tiers) typically involve different servers, data center networks and often geographies.īefore moving further, it is important to clarify the difference between a “Tier” vs “Layer”. The user interface (Presentation Tier) runs in a separate environment than the “computation” (Business Logic Tier) which in turn also runs in a distinct environment from the database engine and instances (Data Tier). N-tier (or multi-tier) architecture refers to software that has its several layers rendered by distinct IT environments (tiers) under a client-server logic. The graphic below shows how this plays out on the web:
This widely empowered the proliferation of Tier 3 architecture in which the UI component was separated from the core computing and the database. Thus, Tier 2 architecture solutions started to be utilized.Īs the internet became popular in the 1990s, it brought with it a revolution in terms of a user interface which was more performant and capable, but necessitated a specific web server. It was not long until the IT industry started realizing that things like distinct patching time frames from operating system and database engine manufacturers, recurrent common incidents, or even the need to update/upgrade components required urgent mitigation by having the processing and database tiers physically and logically split. This meant that the user interface software (UI), the program itself, and the database would be running on the same platform (operating system and computer).
When business computing began to move from the mainframe to more affordable commodity machines, one would pick a given computer and “promote” it to server status by installing a database engine, some sort of code interpreter plus compiler, and develop software code that would then create the needed software tool.