Catalog / Software Architecture: Tools & Concepts
Software Architecture: Tools & Concepts
A comprehensive cheat sheet outlining essential tools, concepts, and best practices in software architecture. This guide covers various architectural patterns, design principles, and related technologies to help architects and developers build robust and scalable systems.
Architectural Patterns
Monolithic Architecture
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Description: Traditional architecture where all components are tightly coupled and deployed as a single unit. Pros: Simple to develop, deploy, and test initially. Cons: Difficult to scale, maintain, and update. Changes in one part can affect the entire application. |
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Use Cases: Small to medium-sized applications with limited complexity and low scalability requirements. |
Microservices Architecture
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Description: An architectural style that structures an application as a collection of small, autonomous services, modeled around a business domain. Pros: Improved scalability, independent deployment, technology diversity, fault isolation. Cons: Increased complexity, distributed debugging, eventual consistency challenges. |
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Use Cases: Complex, large-scale applications with high scalability and availability requirements. Organizations with multiple development teams. |
Layered Architecture
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Description: Organizes the application into distinct layers (e.g., presentation, business logic, data access), each performing a specific role. Pros: Separation of concerns, easy to understand, test, and modify. Cons: Can lead to tight coupling between layers, performance overhead if not designed properly. |
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Use Cases: Applications where a clear separation of concerns is needed, such as enterprise applications and web applications. |
Design Principles
SOLID Principles
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S - Single Responsibility Principle: A class should have only one reason to change. |
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Benefits: Improved code maintainability, reusability, and testability. Reduced coupling and increased cohesion. |
DRY Principle
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Description: Don’t Repeat Yourself. Avoid duplication of code and logic by using abstraction and reuse. Benefits: Reduced code size, easier maintenance, lower risk of errors. |
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Example: Use functions, classes, or modules to encapsulate reusable logic instead of copy-pasting code. |
KISS Principle
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Description: Keep It Simple, Stupid. Design systems to be as simple as possible, avoiding unnecessary complexity. Benefits: Easier to understand, maintain, and debug. Reduces the risk of introducing bugs. |
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Example: Prefer straightforward solutions over overly complex ones, even if they seem less elegant initially. |
Tools and Technologies
Containerization (Docker)
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Description: Packages software and its dependencies into isolated containers for consistent execution across different environments. Benefits: Improved portability, scalability, and resource utilization. Simplifies deployment and management. |
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Key Commands: |
Orchestration (Kubernetes)
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Description: Automates the deployment, scaling, and management of containerized applications. Benefits: High availability, fault tolerance, and automated scaling. Simplifies complex deployments. |
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Key Concepts: Pods, Services, Deployments, Namespaces |
API Gateways
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Description: Manages and routes API requests, providing security, rate limiting, and other essential features. Benefits: Improved security, traffic management, and API discoverability. Decouples clients from backend services. |
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Examples: Kong, Apigee, Tyk |
Communication & Messaging
Message Queues
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Description: Facilitate asynchronous communication between services by storing messages in a queue until they are processed. Benefits: Decoupling, scalability, and fault tolerance. Enables reliable communication between services. |
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Examples: RabbitMQ, Kafka, ActiveMQ |
gRPC
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Description: A high-performance, open-source universal RPC framework. Benefits: Efficient communication, strong typing, and language interoperability. Suitable for microservices architectures. |
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Key Features: Protocol Buffers, HTTP/2, Streaming |
RESTful APIs
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Description: An architectural style for designing networked applications based on standard HTTP methods and resources. Benefits: Simple, widely adopted, and easy to understand. Supports caching and scalability. |
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Key Concepts: Resources, HTTP methods (GET, POST, PUT, DELETE), Status Codes |