Software Architecture Fundamentals - 07

-

 


🏗️ Understanding Architectural Patterns: A Simple Guide

In software development, the way we structure our systems matters—a lot. It affects how fast we can build features, fix bugs, and scale our apps.

These structures are called architectural patterns. Think of them like blueprints for software.

In this post, we’ll look at the two major patterns:

  • Monolithic Architecture

  • Microkernel (Plugin) Architecture

Let’s break them down in simple terms. 👇

🧱 1. Monolithic Architecture: One Big Block of Code

A monolith is one single, large program where all the features live together:

  • UI (User Interface)

  • Business logic

  • Database access

All tightly connected in a single codebase.

✅ Benefits:

  • Fast execution – everything runs in one process

  • Easier to start – one project, one deploy

❌ Drawbacks:

  • Hard to maintain – huge and messy over time

  • Slow deployment – updating takes hours or days

  • Risky changes – one bug can break everything

☠️ The “Big Ball of Mud”

This is the worst kind of monolith. It:

  • Grows without structure

  • Is full of hidden dependencies

  • Is so fragile that nobody wants to touch it

👎 Developers dread working on it.

💡 Tip: Don’t be afraid to replace a bad monolith. Big tech companies do it all the time—and often with less cost than maintaining the old one.

🔌 2. Microkernel Architecture: Core + Plugins

In this model, the system has:

  • A kernel (the core functionality)

  • Multiple plugins (independent components)

Each plugin handles a specific job and communicates with the kernel.

🏪 Example:

In a store application:

  • The kernel handles inventory and orders

  • Plugins send emails, handle invoices, reorder stock

✅ Benefits:

  • Plugins are small and independent – easy to test and deploy

  • Avoids big ball of mud – plugins can’t call each other

  • Better maintainability – update parts without touching the core

❌ Drawbacks:

  • Kernel is a single point of failure

  • Changing the kernel's API can break all plugins

⚙️ Used in modern cloud systems like AWS, Azure, and Linux.

🔁 Real Systems Use Mixed Patterns

Most real-world apps use a combination of patterns. No single architecture solves all problems.

The key is to choose the right pattern for your needs.

🔍 Quick Recap



💭 Final Thoughts

If your current system is:

  • Slow to update ⏳

  • Hard to test 🔍

  • Risky to touch 🔥

…it might be time to rethink your architecture. Start small, fix what you can, and don’t fear change. 🚀

✅ Replacing a bad architecture is often cheaper and safer than sticking with a broken one.

📌 Next Up: Message-Based Architectures (and Microservices)

Follow along for the next post, where we talk about flexible, scalable systems powered by messages and events.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Apache Kafka - The basics

-
Image
 What is Kafka? Event and Message streaming platform Yes, It is open-source and freely available. There are some commercial availabilities also.  Producers( AKA publishers) push messages/events to Kafka Consumers( AKA subscribers) listen & receive messages/events Publisher ?? Subscriber ??  Don't worry. Let's take a look at it before digging deep. 😊 Publisher Subscriber Pattern. Consider below case. A sender sends message to the receiver.  Sender needs to know the receiver address ( means receiver address should configure in Sender side) Both parties should agreed upon common protocol/format for data sending and receiving.  Now see this case,  Now 3 receiver addresses should configure in sender side.  And if you need to add a new one, then sender side also has a change to be done.  Imagine multiple sender sending multiple receivers ,  Yes. the configuration is a mess now. It is not easy to add a new receiver because there can be many sen...
Read more

Kafka: How to handle duplicate messages

-
Image
Kafka is "at least once" by default. ???? What is "At Least Once" in Kafka? (Simple Explanation) "At least once" means: Kafka guarantees that every message will be delivered , But sometimes the same message might be delivered more than once (duplicate). 🔁 Why it happens: If a consumer crashes or times out, Kafka resends the message after retry.            (Here, what I meant by resend  that Kafka allows to pull the same message. If you know about Kafka Architecture it does not push/ send messages to consumer. Instead consumer is the one pulls the messages) If the system didn’t record that it already processed it, it may process it again . 🛠 Example: You (Consumer) receive a payment event. You process it and update the database. But before you commit (Telling Kafka "I have successfully processed this message" or in other words consumer failed to submit the offset to Kafka ), the consumer crashes. Kafka thinks it fa...
Read more

Spring: How to deal with circular dependencies

-
Image
  🔄 Solving Circular Dependencies in Spring Boot: A Complete Guide When your Spring services get tangled up and can't start - here's how to fix it! 🤔 What is a Circular Dependency? A circular dependency happens when two or more Spring beans depend on each other, creating a loop. Spring can't figure out which bean to create first, so your application fails to start. Think of it like this: Service A needs Service B, but Service B also needs Service A - it's like two people waiting for each other to go first through a door! 🚪 💥 How Does It Happen? (Real Example) Let's say you're building an e-commerce app: @Service public class OrderService { @Autowired private PaymentService paymentService; public void createOrder(Order order) { // Process order paymentService.processPayment(order.getPaymentInfo()); } } @Service public class PaymentService { @Autowired private OrderService orderService; // ...
Read more