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Architectural Styles and Patterns

Architectural Patterns are well-known compositions of architectural elements which allow a system to effectively meet its quality requirements.

Some common architectural patterns which address QBee's top 5 quality requirements​

Usability​

  • Model-View-Controller (MVC)
  • Client-Server

Security​

  • Microkernel
  • Layered
  • Model-View-Controller (MVC)
  • Pipe-and-Filter

Scalability​

  • Microservices
  • Service-oriented Architecture (SOA)
  • Blackboard
  • Space-based

Performance​

  • Service Mesh
  • Load Balancer
  • Throttling
  • Map Reduce

Reliability​

  • Process Pairs
  • Triple Modular Redundancy (TMR)
  • Passive Redundancy (Warm Spare)

Selected Architectural Patterns for QBee​

Model-View-Controller (MVC)​

The Model-View-Controller architectural pattern allows for the separation of software business logic from the user interface. A user uses the controller to manipulate the model, which is an internal representation of the software's information. The model then updates the view, which is the user interface that the user sees and which displays the information to the user.

This is an ideal pattern to design QBee's frontend interface. For example, QBee's input classes are controllers which can be used by the user to manipulate QBee's 'intermediate form' of query representation, which represents a model of query information. This model then updates the views that the user sees, which include the other inputs, and query results and reports.

Layered​

The layered architectural pattern arranges a software system into distinct layers, with each layer responsible for its own functionality. This ensures separation of concerns and modularisation of code

This is an ideal pattern to structure QBee's entire stack of technologies. Our presentation layer consists of our frontend progressive web app (PWA), whilst our business logic layer consists of our API and server-side application. Lastly, QBee will effectively make use of two persistence layers - our own data store to store user data and queries, as well as the data stores that can be connected by users to the app for querying.

Microservices​

The microservices architectural pattern arranges a software system as a loosely-coupled collection of granular services, allowing for high scalability and maintainability

This is an ideal pattern to design QBee's various services, such as querying, reporting and user management. They can run as separate "micro-apps" communicating through lightweight interfaces.