As seen with most trends, software architecture is something that evolves over time. The best way to create your own n-tier architecture is by starting with a very basic one and adding onto it as needed.

The term “n-tiered” refers to how many layers of code there are between what users interact with and the data source or logic used to process that information.

For example, if you were designing an ecommerce website, the browser would be the user interface, web servers would be the next layer, and then the database (or databases) would be the innermost part.

As you can see, the browsers we use today have well-designed internal structures for storing and processing information. For example, they have built-in networking functionality, security protections, and memory storage.

Software engineers take these concepts and apply them to other parts of a computer program. By doing this, we achieve repeatable, sturdy software that works every time.

Create a data access layer

Data is one of the most important assets for any business, software companies that do not have solid database management systems are considered small businesses at best.

Businesses rely heavily on their databases to function effectively, everything from marketing materials to customer information to internal processes require consistent and quality input.

Software developers who are new to web development may not know how to create a good database structure or handle different types of databases. This can be very frustrating for website owners looking to recruit help.

Data Access Layers (DAL) are an integral part of any large-scale MVC applications due to this. A DAL takes care of all connections to various databases for you, leaving you to focus more on developing your app.

There are many ways to implement a DAL in MVC apps, here we will go over one method using SQL Server and Entity Framework.

Create an MVC layer

An M-M (Model-Manager) pattern is used for creating modular applications. This pattern divides your application into three main components: A model, a manager, and a view.

The model contains of business logic and data that your app requires to function properly. For example, it could be all the information about people or companies, or how much money you have when investing. The manager handles interactions with the model and other parts of the app. It can access the model to retrieve or modify data and talk to other internal apps using HTTP methods such as GET, POST, PUT, and DELETE.

The view uses the output from the model and manager to present content to users. Views typically show what the app does back to the user.

With this structure, you can easily add new views, managers, and models without having to rebuild everything else! Plus, because each part of the app is separate, you can independently test them out before putting them together.

Create an API layer

The first step towards creating an n-tier architecture is defining what all of the different tiers are, and how they will be connected together.

The basic concept of an n-tiered application framework like ASP.NET MVC is modularity. By using this approach, you can break down a complicated task into many smaller tasks that each work on a small part of the bigger picture.

In software engineering, there’s often talk about big frameworks being limiting, because they don’t offer as much customization or feature richness as something more niche. That’s not really true when it comes to MVC!

By adding features slowly, MVC becomes quite powerful. It’s easy to start with just building a simple website, but then add some menus, pages, widgets, etc. As your site grows, you’ll find yourself adding additional layers of complexity to handle larger workloads, faster.

That’s where MVC’s interface comes in very handy. Because MVC was designed with extensibility in mind, developing an extra UI component isn’t too difficult. You can easily create your own widget toolkit, for example, by adding new views to a given controller and template.

Create an application layer

The application level is where most of the action happens in any web app. This is also one of the hardest levels to nail down because it can seem like there are never really clear definitions for what this level should be.

Typically, we refer to the “application” as something that does things such as interacting with other apps or systems, gathering user input, performing calculations, etc.

But what if I told you that creating an applications wasn’t actually about doing those things? What if I asked you to create an interface just by clicking buttons and responding to prompts?

I would ask you to do impossible things!

We could spend our time designing interfaces and interactive features, but that isn’t how software gets built. We build real applications by stacking up functions and data into logical layers that talk to each other.

In fact, some might even say that good architecture has nothing to do with flashy graphics or intuitive menus; instead, they believe that well-designed architectures have clear layering and separation of responsibilities.

At its core, great software engineering is about function over form – not beautiful code, but logically organized functionality.

Create a service layer

The second step in creating an M-V-C architecture is defining what will be your next level of abstraction, which we refer to as your service layer. This layer will contain functions that are not tied to any specific controller or view.

Services should have a clear purpose and objective, and they must be testable. Make sure you can easily write mock services for testing purposes!

Services should also be independent of anything else – this includes other services, controllers, views, etc. Services are usually domain oriented so make sure to use them appropriately.

A good place to start when designing your service layers is by thinking about how you would like to organize your applications. For example, if you want to create a web application that allows users to upload pictures, you could start with a built-in service called MediaUploader. You then would need to find another service to handle where the uploaded images go (storage, social media, etc.).

From there you can build upon those foundations and add more functionality to your app.

Create a domain layer

Domain-driven design (DDD) is an approach to software development that emphasizes developing small, discrete components or domains with defined behaviors. These domains are then connected together using layers of other systems, such as OOP classes and functions.

The key idea behind DDD is to start with something important and give it your full attention. In this case, that something is solving a problem in a specific field — creating engaging digital experiences for users. By defining what matters most in your experience level by time, we can begin building more complex applications.

By breaking down large projects into smaller pieces, you increase the chance of success. This way, you’re not trying to build everything at once; you focus on one part until it’s done and you can move onto the next.

With MVC architecture, there are three main layers: model, view, and controller. A lot of people get confused about which layer belongs to what, so here they are separated out and discussed.

Create a kernel layer

The kernel layer is an underlying framework that all of your applications will be built upon. This layer does not directly interact with any users, it interacts only with other layers of your application.

The most common example of this is the operating system you use to run your computer. Most OS’s have a kernel that takes care of things like memory allocation and file systems. All software (whether they are games or productivity tools) must rely on the kernel to function properly.

For your website, this core layer can be something such as Laravel which has a well-documented set of APIs people can build onto. By using these API methods, you create your own custom kernels!

There are many excellent open source web kernals out there that anyone could add functionality to or completely re-write. A good way to start building your own kernel is by looking at how others implemented theirs and adding more features.

Create an infrastructure layer

An infrastructure layer is typically considered to be what most refer to as the backend of your application. This term can vary slightly, but typically this refers to anything that does not contain applications or websites within it.

The reason people use the word backend here is because this area usually contains files such as MySQL databases or PHP servers. These are things that help run your website or app!

By having these separate areas, you can add new staff member or remove current ones without disrupting the site or app completely. By having separate areas for different parts of the web server, users won’t have to worry about them being there long-term.