Techssocial | Technical backgrounds have been pacing up towards change and continuous development. With active user engagement, explicit features of the internet, and increasing functionality of web apps, things seem to be changing within the industry.
Rapidly replacing desktop-based websites, web apps had been the latest trends and more and more developers are now trying to get a glance at the probable changes in web app architecture so that they can attract users in a greater number towards their business. Well, this is also one of the major challenges that developers have to cope with before the real startup with the application development process. In the following content, we would have a closer look at the architectures of web apps, their importance, and their scope in near future.
Table of Contents
What is Web Application Architecture?
A web application can be defined as middleware systems, applications, and databases in order to ensure that multiple applications can function together. When the user taps “Go” after typing the URL, the browser will search for the internet-facing website and requests the page to appear. The server then sends the file to another browser, which further executed files and requests the page to the user. And all of this happens within a few seconds.
Coding here plays a major role. Because if more time is taken for things to process and complete, no users would actually bother a website. However, it is not necessary that the coding includes specific commands for the server to react on a wide swath of inputs that may occur. And as a result, external applications and sub-components that are to be included in the web app architecture tend to change for the entire software application.
Web application architecture holds on to a major role in meeting some specific goals and requirements. And it is also known to be critical as every single device and app in the global network traffic, uses web-based communication. It needs to deal with efficiency, scale, robustness, and security.
Working of a Web Application Architecture
Within the working of the web app architecture, server Vs. the client side; there are two programs that are known to run:
- The code in the browser that responds to the user input.
- The code on the server responds to the HTTP requests.
It is entirely up to the developer, during the composition (writing)of an app as to what role the server code would play and what the code on the browser would do. Following are the server-side code languages that may be included:
- PHP
- Ruby on Rails
- Python
- C#
- JavaScript
- Java
Also, any code that can respond to HTTP requests is known to be capable of running on a server. The following attributes exist in regard to the server-side code:
- Except in the case of rare malfunctioning, it is never seen by the user.
- It stores data in the form of tweets, pages, user profiles etc.
- Creates pages as per the request of the user.
The client-side coding languages include the following:
- JavaScript
- CSS
- HTML
These are further known to be parsed by the user’s browser. Moreover, the users can view and edit the client side code. Though it cannot be done directly off the server only via HTTP requests. It is known to react as per the user input further.
Types of Web Application Architecture
A web application component always has the capability of working simultaneously and creating an integral web app, regardless of the model. There can, however, be several different kinds of web app architecture depending on the distribution of app logic among server and client side. Have look.
Legacy HTML Web App
This is known to be the basic and very first web app architecture as per which a server that is composed of the business logic and the web page development logic sends out a complete HTML page to interact with the client. In order to view the updates, the user would require reloading the page. This is known to be a highly secured type of architecture since all the data and logic are stored in the server and the user has no access to it. It had been a choice commonly for static websites rather than web apps due to huge data exchange and constant content reload.
Widget Web App
In this type of website architecture, web services are known to substitute web page construction. Also, on the client, every page is known to possess a separate entity that is known as a widget. Widgets can collect and display chunks of data in JSON or HTML without reloading the entire page, by sending AJAX queries to web services. This type of architecture is mobile-friendly, dynamic and very popular; allowing real-time widget updates. However, it takes a longer time for development and is known to be less secure, the app logic being partially shifted to the exposed client-side.
Single-Page Web App Architecture
Allowing downloading only a single page once, this is known to be the most modern web application architecture. The JavaScript layer on the client side allows free communication with the web services on the server and also makes real-time updates for itself, utilizing the data of web services. In comparison to the types mentioned earlier the amount of data transferred here is known to be much less. It is known to be a responsive, agile and light weighted web app that can be transformed easily into a mobile application with the help of Hybrid wrappers, for example, PhoneGap/Cordova.
Web Application Architecture and Future Growth
The web app architecture that is used is going to be a blueprint of the future growth that is to arrive with changing trends, interoperability and reliability requirements. Hence, it is imperative to have a web architecture that is capable of facing the different phases that would be coming further. The functioning of an application is described precisely with object-oriented programming and the organizational design of the web app architecture. Here are some of the features that would count among them:
- Delivery of persistent data through HTTP that can be understood on the client side and also vice-versa.
- Making sure that requests contain valid data.
- Limiting what the users can see based on various permissions.
- Offer authentication for users
- Create, delete and update records.
The model and choices of web application architecture would probably define how responsive, robust, fast and secure your web app is or will be. Therefore, this is something you need to evaluate well and consider all possible options.
Hemant is Digital Marketer and he has 6 + years of experience in SEO, Content marketing, Infographic etc.