Introducing the New Application Architecture

Over the last few years a new architectural approach has emerged that provides agility, flexibility, and scalability. Described as “The Four‑Tier Engagement Platform” by Forrester Research, this modern approach to web architecture is designed specifically for the mobile age. The Four‑Tier model is architected to create a foundation for excellent performance, device‑tailored experiences, and allows for integration of both internal services and applications as well as third‑party services and APIs. Forrester’s Four‑Tier Engagement Platform is broken into client, delivery, aggregation, and services layers.

The Four‑Tier Engagement Platform Makes Delivery Its Own Tier. Source: Forrester Research, Inc.

The most dramatic difference in this new model isthe client tier, as modern applications need to think about the user‑facing layer as its own independent set of functionality that leverages the delivery, aggregation, and services layers beneath it to create device‑specific and highly tailored experiences.

If a user on a mobile device loads the homepage of a media website, the application should respond with content that is optimized for performance on that device and presented in the context of the user experience designed and developed by the website’s UX team. Isolating the user interface from the three tiers behind it in this way gives frontend and user‑experience designers and engineers much more control to create memorable digital experiences by tailoring them to the specific user context (device type, location, and so on), integrating with third‑party content or services, or simply redesigning them regularly to optimize for engagement and conversion, all without disrupting backend processes or engineering. Similarly, it leaves backend designers free to adopt the best technology for their tier as long as the established protocols and encoding for information delivery to the client tier are maintained.

Content Delivery Network

The delivery tieris responsible for optimizing delivery of the digital experience to the user using intelligence received from the client layer. Using intelligence‑driven solutions such as content delivery networks (CDNs) and on‑the‑fly optimization tools such as those used for compressing images to decrease bandwidth, the delivery tier is designed to handle middle and last‑mile challenges well, ensuring the best possible end‑user experience regardless of user location or quality of network connectivity. The data tier also utilizes sophisticated caching algorithms and tools that enable DevOps to monitor and resolve application performance and delivery issues in real time.

The aggregation tieris an API layer that serves as a hub for integrating internal and external services using real‑time, bidirectional communication. Composing underlying services, such as data storage and third‑party services, this layer of the application framework compiles and composes data and content for delivery to the client. The aggregation tier serves as the center of application logic, performing tasks like translating between SOAP to JSON encoding or combining third‑party and in‑house algorithms to perform complex calculations. This allows developers to easily build complex applications using business intelligence, analytics, and role‑based permissions.

The final tier of the engagement platform isthe services tier, which provides the other tiers with the data and functionality they require. The services tier is designed for a microservices approach, one that is designed to be open and pluggable, and focuses on the integration and composition of existing services a company has already built as well as new open source libraries. Whether data is stored in a relational database such as MySQL or a document store database such as RethinkDB, the services tier provides the infrastructure to process application requests and workloads. This provides developers with extreme flexibility in both their internal organization of data and the choices they make when integrating with third‑party applications.

This four‑tier architecture is already the core foundation of industry‑leading applications and services like Netflix, Uber, and many others. We all know that users want experiences that are fast, responsive, and tailored to their unique needs, and that businesses need to adapt quickly to changing market conditions and scaling requirements. As a developer, engineer, or architect, you realize that this new architecture will let you meet both of these goals. But now you’re left wondering: “Do I have the right tools available to deliver on these promises?”

What Do I Need to Adopt the Four‑Tier Engagement Platform?

As Forrester Research explains, the new standard for application delivery is different from prior architectures in that it focuses on the experience of the developer just as much as the user. To adopt the four‑tier engagement platform you need a tool that links the tiers together so they can communicate, scale, and deliver. Powering over 40% of the top 10,000 websites and applications, and recognized as the fastest growing web server for 5 years in a row by W3Tech, NGINX is the fabric that binds together the modern application architecture.

NGINX is a software‑based solution designed to meet the needs of the most demanding applications, and supports the engagement platform at all tiers.

• For example, NGINX supports the client tier with advanced media streaming and device customization capabilities.
• Our software powers the delivery tier with highly scalable load balancing functionality and advanced caching mechanisms. With the ability to serve thousands, and sometimes millions, of requests per second, NGINX is commonly used to power CDNs, and even used by commercial providers such as Level3 and MaxCDN.
• At the aggregation tier , NGINX plays an important role as a reverse proxy, requesting and caching data from a variety of services, or as a platform for your own APIs, allowing them to be easily managed and secured.
• Lastly, the services tier uses NGINX to support and coordinate the variety of running microservices, which consist of highly reliable and independent components. NGINX provides a solution that will allow you to intertwine performance and scalability to solve the challenges and complexities of modern web and mobile applications.

Now is the time to finalize plans for your next website or application project or upgrade. We encourage you toread more about the four‑tier application architecture. What sets great developers apart from the rest – or, more urgently, what separates winners from losers – is the ability to innovate, adapt, and build extraordinary new products and experiences faster than the competition. Get started today and join other companies in making the switch to a modern application architecture