The 3-Tiered Architecture and What it Means to VCs
I have been asked by multiple VC clients of mine to explain the 3-Tier architecture as it pertains to vetting a software company. Since many SaaS, ASP & web-enabled software companies use an interation of this architecture it helps to have a breakdown of it. Understanding the workings of the standard 3-Tier web architecture greatly improves the VCs understanding of a web-enabled software's inner workings thus allowing for a better investment decision. The following describes the each of the layers and a standard diagram is provided to represent each conceptual tier: Presentation tier – web application layer consisting of web site code hosted on a Internet facing server (Apache or IIS). Interactions with this layer initiate data transaction calls to communicate with a runtime engine or similar in the COM layer. Logic tier – Often called the COM layer, it consists of a runtime engine or other processing central code. This layer accepts transaction calls from the presentation la