Implementing software architecture patterns

Written by Anders Marzi Tornblad 28 May 2023

This is part 3 of the Getting into software architecture series. If you haven't read the first part, here it is: A primer for emerging software architects

In the world of software architecture, we can see a lot of architectural patterns at work, each with their unique strengths and tailored application scenarios. In our software engineering journey, we need a robust set of tools to solve complex problems. One important set of such tools is the architectural patterns. Let's look at four significant patterns: Event-Driven Architecture, Microservices Architecture, Layered Monolith Architecture, and Pipe-and-Filter Architecture. We'll study the tactical implementation of these architectures, enabling you to pick the most suitable approach for your unique needs.

Event-driven architecture

Event-driven architecture (EDA) is a powerful design pattern characterized by the production, detection, and reaction to events. Its strength lies in decoupling of event producers from consumers, promoting scalability, flexibility, and improved responsiveness.

Identify the key components: The core components of an EDA are event producers, event consumers, event channels, and the event bus. The clear identification of these elements sets the foundation of an EDA.
Choose the right technology: Implementing EDA requires the right set of tools. Message brokers such as Kafka, RabbitMQ, or cloud-based solutions like AWS SNS/SQS or Azure Service Bus can be used as the event bus.
Ensure order and consistency: In most cases, it is important thet events are delivered reliably and in order. Careful design of the event and transaction handling is vital for consistency.
Monitor and trace events: With numerous asynchronous events, it's crucial to have robust monitoring and logging in place. Distributed tracing tools like Zipkin or Jaeger can prove invaluable.

Strengths

Scalability: Can handle high traffic and loads due to its asynchronous nature.
Loose coupling: Producers and consumers don't need to know each other, providing flexibility in system design.
Real-time response: Ideal for scenarios where immediate action is needed on data changes.

Drawbacks

Complexity: The asynchronous nature of EDA can make the system complex to understand and manage.
Event ordering: Ensuring events are processed in order can be challenging.
Debugging and testing: Asynchronous systems are typically harder to debug and test.

Typical use case

EDA is commonly used in real-time analytics systems, monitoring systems, or complex systems where multiple services need to react to state changes, like IoT systems.

Microservices architecture

Microservices architecture shines with its ability to divide an application into a collection of loosely coupled services. It enables independent deployment and scalability of individual components, but often comes with less overall maintainability and more expensive hosting, because of increased inner network communication, data synchronization and redundancy.

Design around business capabilities: Each microservice should correspond to a business capability and be owned by a small team.
Choose the right communication protocol: Microservices can communicate using various protocols, including HTTP/REST with JSON or binary protocols like gRPC.
Implement service discovery: As microservices might change their location, implement service discovery mechanisms like Netflix's Eureka or Kubernetes' built-in service discovery.
Plan for failure: As you have multiple services, the likelihood of service failure increases. Implement fault tolerance and resilience patterns like Circuit Breaker and Bulkhead.

Strengths

Independent deployment: Services can be developed, deployed, and scaled independently.
Technology diversity: Each microservice can use technology best suited to its needs.
Fault isolation: Ideal for scenarios where immediate action is needed on data changes.

Drawbacks

Increased complexity: More services mean more inter-service communication, need for coordination, and data consistency management.
Deployment and monitoring: Requires robust DevOps practices and monitoring tools.
Network latency: Increased inter-service communication can lead to network latency.

Typical use case

Microservices architecture is suitable for very large-scale enterprise applications that require scalability, flexibility, and high-speed deployment and updating.

Layered monolith architecture

Layered architecture, typically seen in monolithic applications, involves organizing components into a layered hierarchy, where each layer has specific responsibilities and communicates with layers directly above or below it.

Define clear responsibilities: Each layer should have a clearly defined responsibility; for example, presentation for UI/UX, business for logic, and data access for interacting with databases.
Maintain strict layer interaction: Each layer should only interact with the layer directly above or below it to ensure the architecture's integrity.
Isolate concerns: By isolating responsibilities, changes in one layer should have minimal impact on others, increasing maintainability.
Consider a modular monolith: Even with monoliths, it's good to keep the codebase modular, making it easier to refactor parts into microservices when the need arises.

Strengths

Simplicity: Easier to develop, test, and deploy as it's a single unit.
Performance: Since components interact within the same process, latency is often lower than in distributed systems.
Centralized management: Easier to manage due to the centralized nature of the architecture.

Drawbacks

Limited scalability: To scale a monolith, you generally need to scale the entire application, not just the high-traffic components.
Deployment risk: Even a small change requires redeploying the entire application, increasing risk.
Technology bound: The entire application is typically built using a single programming language.

Typical use case

A Layered Architecture is often a good choice for small to medium-sized applications where simplicity of development, testing, and deployment are the priorities.

Pipe-and-filter architecture

Pipe-and-filter architecture is a pattern where the data is passed through several components (filters), each performing an operation on it, in a one-way sequence (pipe).

Decompose into stages: Identify the stages in your processing pipeline. Each stage should be a filter, doing a small part of the overall job.
Ensure data compatibility: Each filter should generate data in a format that the next filter can accept.
Utilize parallel processing: The architecture naturally supports parallel processing. Exploit this to improve performance and throughput.
Maintain error and exception handling: Ensure robust error handling, given the multi-stage processing.

Strengths

Modularity: Each filter can be developed, tested, and updated independently.
Reusability: Filters can be reused across different pipelines.
Concurrency: Filters can process data in parallel, increasing performance.

Drawbacks

Performance overhead: Each filter adds latency due to data transmission and transformation.
Error propagation: Errors can propagate through the pipeline, making error handling crucial.
Debugging: Debugging and understanding a complex pipe-and-filter system can be challenging.

Typical use case

Pipe-and-filter architecture is commonly used in data processing and transformation pipelines such as compilers, data streaming or ingestion systems, and workflow-based systems.

Summary

This exploration into the world of architectural patterns should provide you with a overall understanding of their usage and nuances. Recognizing the importance of choosing the right architecture for your application and implementing it effectively can be the difference between project success and failure.

Additional readings:

Articles in this series: