Chapter 14. Layers of an Application

The advantage of a bad memory is that one enjoys several times the same good things for the first time.

Friedrich Nietzsche

Any software of any reasonable complexity is best designed if organized in layers. Each layer represents a logical section of the system. A layer is hosted on a physical tier (for example, a server machine). Multiple layers can be hosted on the same tier, and each layer can optionally be moved to a separate tier at any time and possibly with limited work.

Most of the time, you arrange a three-tiered architecture with some flavors of service orientation just to make each layer ready for a possible move to a different physical tier. There are various reasons to move a layer onto its own ...

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