This article was based on a wikipedia Page: Multitier architecture
In software engineering, multi-tier architecture (often referred to as n-tier architecture) is a client-server architecture in which an application is executed by more than one distinct software agent. For example, an application that uses middleware to service data requests between a user and a database employs multi-tier architecture. The most widespread use of “multi-tier architecture” refers to three-tier architecture.
The 3-Tier architecture has the following three tiers.
- Presentation Tier
- Logic Tier / Business Logic Tier / Transaction Tier
- Data Tier
(*note that “tier” means “layer”)
Web development usage
In the web development field, three-tier is often used to refer to websites, commonly electronic commerce websites, which are built using three tiers:
- A front end Web server serving static content
- A middle dynamic content processing and generation level application server, for example Java EE platform
- A back end database, comprising both data sets and the database management system or RDBMS software that manages and provides access to the data