4.25. What is two-tier architecture?

The two-tier architecture is refers to client/ server architectures as well, the term client/ server was first used in the 1980s in reference to personal computers (PCs) on a network. The actual client/ server model started gaining acceptance in the late 1980s, and later it was adapted to World Wide Web programming.

According to the modern days use of two-tier architecture the user interfaces (or with ASP.NET, all web pages) runs on the client and the database is stored on the server. The actual application logic can run on either the client or the server. So in this case the user interfaces are directly access the database. Those can also be non-interface processing engines, which provide solutions to other remote/ local systems. In either case, today the two-tier model is not as reputed as the three-tier model. The advantage of the two-tier design is its simplicity, but the simplicity comes with the cost of scalability. The newer three-tier architecture, which is more famous, introduces a middle tier for the application logic.

4.26. What is three-tier architecture?

The three tier software architecture (also known as three layer architectures) emerged in the 1990s to overcome the limitations of the two tier architecture. This architecture has aggressively customized and adopted by modern day system designer to web systems.

Three-tier is a client-server architecture in which the user interface, functional process logic, data storage and data access are developed and maintained as independent modules, some time on separate platforms. The term "three-tier" or "three-layer", as well as the concept of multi-tier architectures (often refers to as three-tier architecture), seems to have originated within Rational Software.

The 3-Tier architecture has the following three tiers.

1. Presentation Tier or Web Server: User Interface, displaying/ accepting data/ input to/ from the user
2. Application Logic/ Business Logic/ Transaction Tier or Application Server: Data validation, acceptability check before being added to the database and all other business/ application specific operations
3. Data Tier or Database server: Simple reading and writing method to database or any other storage, connection, command, stored procedures etc

4.27. What is MVC architecture?

The Model-View-Controller (MVC) architecture separates the modeling of the domain, the presentation, and the actions based on user input into three separate classes.

Unfortunately, the popularity of this pattern has resulted in a number of faulty usages; each technology (Java, ASP.NET etc) has defined it in their own way making it difficult to understand. In particular, the term "controller" has been used to mean different things in different contexts. The definitions given bellow are the closes possible ones I found for ASP.NET version of MVC.

1. Model: DataSet and typed DataSet (some times business object, object collection, XML etc) are the most common use of the model.
2. View: The ASPX and ASCX files generally handle the responsibilities of the view.
3. Controllers: The handling of events or the controlling is usually done in the code-behind class.

In a complex n-tier distributed system the MVC architecture place the vital role of organizing the presentation tier of the system.