Middle-tier Benefits
Flexibility
- Supports multiple types of clients
- Tiers can be changed without affecting the rest of the architecture
- Backend system substitution and vendor changes
Scalability and fault tolerance
- Resource sharing and recycling
- Processors, threads, database and network connections
- Load balancing and fail-overs between middle-tier servers
- Specialist backend machines for specific tasks
Ease of development and software management
- Hides server side complexity from client developers behind consistent interfaces
- Reuse of existing software components
- Thin-clients shorten development time
- Software component updates to the middle-tier
- No frequent client side updates