3.5 Architecture for Business Information System

Question 1

What are the types of processing a Business Information System must handle?

Answer 1

Online Transaction Processing
Offline Transaction Processing
Batch Processing

Question 2

What is the Three Layer Architecture?

Answer 2

It is a client-server architecture made up of 3 primary components or layers, which include the UI, the Application Kernel, and Data Management

Question 3

What is the role of each component in the three-layer architecture?

Answer 3

UI: handles presentation logic and dialog control
Application Kernel: Handles Business Logic
Data management: Hadles the database and database access

Question 4

What are the general forces or tradeoffs to consider when designing Business Information Systems Using the client Server Model?

Answer 4

• Business needs vs Complexity: Placing functions and data where needed to accommodate business needs is a good thing but at the same time it increases the system’s complexity making it harder to manage
• Different processing Styles:
  Different tasks will require different processing styles e.g tasks that handle large batches of data will require a lot of processing power compared to other tasks
• Distribution vs Performance:
  Distributing processing across multiple devices may improve data processing speed, and workload balance but may slow down communication between devices
• Distribution vs Security:
  Distributed systems have more entry points or possible points of failure that can cause security risks if exploited.
• Distribution vs Consistency:
  It is difficult to ensure that all components of a distributed system are working in sync compared to a centralized system.

Question 5

What are the 5 distribution patterns used in the client Server?

Answer 5

• Distributed presentation
• Remote UI
• Distributed Application Kernel
• Remote database
• Distributed database

Question 6

Explain the Distributed Presentation distribution pattern.

Answer 6

Here presentation or the UI is divided into two parts one part runs on the client and the other is part of server components, this is to ensure that the part running on the client is extremely lightweight.

Question 7

Explain the Remote Ui distribution pattern.

Answer 7

Here the entire UI is left on the client, but all the application logic is kept server.

Question 8

Explain the Distributed Application Kernel distribution pattern.

Answer 8

The core logic of the server is divided into two parts that run independently of each other

Question 9

Explain the Remote database distribution pattern.

Answer 9

The database is placed on a separate machine on the network and different applications have access to the database.

Question 10

Explain the Distributed database distribution pattern.

Answer 10

The entire database is split into smaller parts spread out across multiple location, all the parts communicate with each other to perform the functions of the database.