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Ultimate Guide to Modern Web Application Architecture - 2023

Mar 17, 23  |  Bakhtain Afzal

The incredible versatility of the term modern application leaves the door open to ambitious developers - what's more, organizations have only started off scratching the surface. Today, the Internet hosts 4.54 billion unique users looking for an amazing web experience.

Fundamentally, the front end of a web application triggers an instant appeal within the audience via an impressive web design, user-friendly interface, and ease of use. As a business, you can achieve your ultimate goal - boosting conversions, maintaining a constant streak of customer loyalty, and delivering an enhanced experience. 

However, like any physically present model, the architecture present inside makes the foundation for smooth web app functionality. Simply put, may it be a multistoried building or an efficient web application, it all stands on a great model architecture.

While your business makes every effort to stand tall, fronting over 1 billion websites, it comes down to the nitty gritty that creates a competitive edge. 

Let's crawl down to modern web application architecture, microservices architecture for web application, application architecture framework, web application types and what is the top component application architecture. 

Join in!

What Is a Modern Web Application?

Web applications are programs that can be used directly within a web browser. Web apps allow businesses a direct, safe, and secure communication channel with their clients. Web apps are the backbone of popular website services, including shopping carts, product search and filtering, instant messaging, and social network news feeds. 

They provide advanced capabilities without the hassle of software installation or setup.

How Does a Web Application Work?

Web applications are server and client-side software applications that run on request in a web browser. Online retail sales, messaging services, and emails are all examples of web apps. Other than a standard definition of it, here's how web apps work:

  • Once a user accesses a web app through mobile or desktop, a request signal is triggered to the website server. 
  • At this stage, you should expect security measures such as cloud access security brokers or load balancers. 
  • Next, the web server forwards the user request to the web app server.
  • The request is sent to the web application server after being processed by the web server. 
  • When a user submits a request to a web application server, the server acts, such as retrieving or processing data from a database. 
  • Afterward, the web application server sends back the results to the web server. Lastly, the web server sends the requested information to the user. And the data is displayed on the screen. 

What Is Modern Web Architecture?

Modern web application architecture broadly defines the layout showing interactions between user interfaces, application components, middleware systems, and databases. It enables multiple plus simultaneous operations on a web application.

When a user accesses a website, the server signals the client browser.

To be more specific, a web client (or user agent) can contact a web server to request online resources or traditional web documents, like HTML, JSON, etc. Following that, the requested information is displayed on your screen. Conclusively, that's how a typical user-website interaction works. Hence, a component application architecture serves the highest feasibility and ease of use.

What Are the Types of Web Architecture?

The main types of Modern web application architecture include the following:

  1. Widget Web App

With no need for a request to load a page, the widget web app represents the next step in the evolution of web apps, making them better suited to mobile devices. As an alternative, widgets use AJAX queries to fetch data bits in JSON and HTML. 

It's better at responding to input and delivering results quicker than the old system, but it takes a long time to design and is vulnerable to intrusion.

  1. Single Page App

This scheme is often referred to as Web 2.0, where only limited control is in the hands of the users. These users employ single-page apps for creating social networks or blog posts.

It's a complex JavaScript app that rescales the HTML content of a particular page. This method of organization results in high-quality performance, quick response times, and valuable time saved when working offline. Such online applications are adaptable and simple to scale.

A web app's performance depends not just on its architecture but also on the server's architecture.

  1. HTML Web App

This is the most commonly known modern web application architecture type, where users get an entire HTML upon request. This is the server-side, i.e., web 1.0. In this scheme, the page must be reloaded so that the associated business logic can respond to the change. 

While this web app structure offers various pros, such as being search engine optimized (SEO)-friendly, secure, and quick to develop, it also has significant drawbacks, such as poor responsiveness, problematic offline functionality, and no potential for conversion into mobile or desktop apps. 

However, the development of dynamic projects is beyond the scope of this static pattern paradigm.

  1. Microservices

This modern web application architecture type is simple and lightweight, where it only performs a single purpose. The advantages of the microservices architecture for web application frameworks include increased development efficiency and a shorter deployment time.

Microservices architecture for web application parts doesn’t rely on one another in any obvious way. For this reason, they can be constructed in different languages.

Hence, microservices architecture for web application developers can choose whatever technology stack they like to work with. It simplifies and accelerates the process of creating the application.

  1. Serverless Architecture

Within this application architecture framework for designing websites, the application creator works with an external cloud infrastructure services provider to handle the maintenance of the servers and other necessary components.

Advantages include freeing up application resources to focus on business logic rather than infrastructure maintenance.

When the company building the web app has no desire to take responsibility for the servers or hardware, Serverless Architecture is the way to go.

Significance of a Full Stack Architecture of a Web Application

An application architecture framework is mainly defined according to the following parameters:

  • Modification ease for developers.
  • User ease for finding solutions to tasks.

Once the web app's internal elements, i.e., its full stack architecture, is well-organized, the modification process for app developers will be more straightforward and streamlined - the essentials of a polished product. The benefits to businesses and development teams from a well-built full stack architecture include the following:

Flexibility and Scalability

The best web based applications must be flexible enough to incorporate new technologies as they emerge to maintain their edge. A trained expert will prioritize the creation of simple methods for future updates and expansion of the app when building its architecture. 

If scaling the software proves technically challenging, it might cost firms a lot of money.

Updated Feature Integration 

A development team can easily add new features through the full stack architecture without disrupting the overall app's functionality by breaking down an extensive system into smaller modules.

Smooth App Functionality

The best web based applications should smoothly execute their requested activities and readily adapt to shifting needs. An architect can identify a practical solution that can resist varying loads and maintain excellent performance based on the app's goal. To illustrate that, a component application architecture offers a smooth app functionality. 

What Is the Difference between Network Architecture and Application Architecture?

Before diving into the depth of the best web based applications and their architectures, let's begin with the terminological differences between a network and an application. A network is primarily used for referring to devices and systems that aim to offer communication abilities to a group of users. An application refers to an assemblage where the users can expect desired output.

A network architecture represents network devices and their user-relationship. An application's architecture visualizes the software, data, output components, and the interactions between these elements. And the qualities of these devices and their user relationships.

Moreover, architectures can be represented in both formats - textually and graphically.

The Modern Web App Architecture Components

The following are the web app architecture components:

  1. DNS

With the Domain Name System (DNS), a user can send a request to a specific server by simply typing in the domain name or IP address. The Domain Name System (DNS), one of the significant architecture components, is analogous to a traditional phone book - it lists websites on the Internet.

  1. Databases

This part of a web program describes itself by its name. The database provides tools for data management, including cataloging, searching, updating, erasing, and calculation. Job servers typically directly communicate with web application servers.

  1. Load Balancer

The main focus of a load balancer modern web app architecture is horizontal expansion. The load balancer then selects one of the available servers to respond to the user's query. Often, web application servers will exist as a set of mirrored copies. Due to this, every server can handle requests similarly. And the load balancer will evenly divide work among them to ensure everyone is manageable on the best web based applications.

  1. Web App Servers

This processes user requests and forwards documents back to the browser. The web app servers relate to the databases' backend where tasks like job queue, databases, and cache server.

In addition, user requests are handled by at least two servers linked to the load balancer.

  1. CDN

CDN (Content Delivery System), being one of the architecture components, handles media transfers like images, scripts, and HTML. It sends the data from the target server to worldwide users, allowing them to access online resources.

  1. Caching Service

This component of the modern web architecture provides data storage - allowing storage within the data. The results of any request made by a client to the server are stored in the cache until the next time the request is made. That way, subsequent requests will be serviced more quickly. 

In a nutshell, Caching is a way to save results from a previous computation and use them to speed up the next one. It follows that caching is useful when:

  • Computation occurs multiple times.
  • Exact results for a specific request.
  • Slow computation.

Examples of Web Server Architecture

Selecting the best web server architecture depends on specific performance parameters. To illustrate a few, here are a few examples of modern web architecture:

Laravel Web Architecture

The Laravel application architecture framework, built on PHP, has an elegant and expressive syntax. The architecture stands on Model-View-Controller. This modern web architecture has several features that make development easy and fast. 

Modular packaging, enhanced authentication, sessions, and caching are just a few enhancements to the architecture of sophisticated web applications, with examples in Laravel PHP. 

Laravel web application code routing system is noteworthy since it allows the building of different routes, each of whose names can be reached by a different URL. These things help programmers optimize web app efficiency and boost user engagement.

Azure Web Architecture

Microsoft, a product of Microsoft, this application architecture framework was made to bridge the gap between traditional methods and cloud-based alternatives. Furthermore, Azure's dedicated cloud platform utilizes top-tier web app techniques within its web application code.

PHP Web Architecture

As a web development language, PHP web application code has received much praise. Its ease of use and practicality contribute to its widespread acceptance. Hence, web apps developed using PHP are safe, overgrew, and require little to no maintenance. Additionally, friendly support from a large community also ensures prompt aid in the event of problems.

What Are the Layers of a Modern Web App Architecture?

You may make changes to the appropriate layer of a modern web app without affecting the rest of the app if you build it with layers to help you understand the function of each component, i.e., through an efficient web application code. It makes creating, testing, organizing, and reusing code simple while depending on the web application types.

The layers of a modern web app architecture include:

  1. Presentation layer
  2. Application layer
  3. Data layer


  1. Presentation Layer

The presentation layer, it’s the client-side layer, which enables you to interact with the server and the backend service via the browser.

The program operates locally within the browser, where it can easily access and respond to user requests for data. Here is where things like user interface and user experience design, dashboards, notifications, configuration options, layout, and interactive features come into play.

  1. Application Layer

The server-side component is the backbone of different web application types. This is because it handles all incoming requests, processes them with business logic, and sends the results to the client-side interface. Various web services, databases, and servers are all part of it.

  1. Data Layer

A database is a vital part of every online application. It's where the application's data will be stored and managed. Information can be sorted, filtered, and searched for per user request using a function, and the results can then be presented to the user. Meanwhile, data protection leads to limited access - based on user roles.

While designing an app, it's crucial to consider the database's scalability, structure, speed, and size. Especially for storing data, SQL-based databases get the highest consideration. The use cases are mainly related to banking and other financial apps where data security is paramount.

For unstructured data, NoSQL stands as a viable method. It's best suited for programs for unpredicted incoming data. Key-value databases are well suited to storing user profiles, reviews, blog comments, etc., as each value is associated with a key. And for analytical purposes, Wide Column databases are a great option.

FAQs

What Is the Architecture of Modern Web Applications?

Different web application types use a 3-tier architecture.

Which Architecture Pattern Is Most Commonly Used in Web Applications?

Layered Pattern is most commonly used among developers for developing various web application types.

Is MVC a Pattern or Architecture?

MVC is an architectural pattern that separates an app into 3 components:

  1. Models
  2. Views
  3. Controllers

Final Note

An organized and well-structured web app ensures that your system can adapt to your company's evolving needs. Simply put, architects' primary function is to plan and design services and products that efficiently address the needs of end users and corporate clients. The component application architecture stands as one of the top examples.

Likewise, it all boils down to who you put your trust into for developing an impressive web application. But, finding top web app development companies is more challenging than the actual web development. To get help, head towards Distinguished - a B2B service providing platform where you can connect with top website developers dedicated to transforming your business web development needs into a digital reality.


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